Is it a pearl or is it Kryptonite?

[CortezPearls]

I assume the light was your traditional fluorescent light and not UV??? I would guess it could be part of the scheme of injecting substances into the pearl sac in order to make the pearls exhibit unusual colors. It is very interesting to see this effect...in a gory, zombi-like way.

Please do keep us posted on your findings Jeremy!

 

[jshepherd]

Yes, it was just a traditional fluorescent light.

I'm certain that there is a coating, and it is thick. Under magnification the coating appears to be thick, it almost makes the pearl appear to be a fake. The fingerprint of a pearl isn't visible.

What remains to be seen is if the coating is the only thing that is causing it to glow. I might need to cut it in half. I'll have to get permission for that first, though.

 

[Marianne]

Reminds me of the Slimer character in Ghost busters.... gak!

 

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

I'm certain that there is a coating, and it is thick.

Does it glow for minutes, or hours?

 

[Ramona]

In my opinion it would be a lot easier and cheaper to produce fake glowing pearls. After all the customer who would buy them would probably be more fashion oriented than really interested in pearls.

 

[jshepherd]

The glow is always there as far as I can tell, but I imagine it fades if left in the dark for a period of time. The intense glow in the photo was only after leaving the pearl under a direct light source for a short while.

Ramona,

I agree. But the fact that they did it with a real pearl is interesting. I don't really see a viable commercial possibility for it, except to pair with a corpse bride costume for Halloween perhaps. But finding new, strange things like this always catches my interest.

 

[Ramona]

Yes, I agree. And their willingness to experiment with pearls should make any other competitor think.

 

[judimcc6]

Any more information about the coating on this pearl? Is it not healthy to wear??? I mean, it does look like something nuclear.

 

[Ingykiz]

Beautiful pearl, but I would be worried to wear a strand of these around my neck, since there is some obvious treatment that has ensued. I would be worried about thyroid cancer or some other gruesome thing. My husband is a pathologist so I have a wild imagination!

 

[Ramona]

In immunofluorescence imaging we use a number of dyes, mostly Alexa fluor that emit for a long time and can be covalently attached to reactive groups. Lanthanides would be something very stable, but they probably would not emit in the range used here. The easiest may be to substitute Ca2+ for strontium (Sr2+). Strontio-aragonite crystals exist naturally and fluoresce red under 366 nm long wave UV and fluoresce pale yellow under 254 nm short wave UV. Strontium gets easily absorbed through skin. I don't know whether strontium would naturally be unstable and contain radioactive isotopes. It would be interesting to examine the pearl with a Geiger counter.