Prince Harry Says Popular Myth Tied to His Mom's Engagement Ring Is 'Nonsense'

In his new tell-all book, Spare, Prince Harry bursts the bubble on the popular myth that he inherited his late mother Princess Diana's iconic sapphire and diamond engagement ring, but then selflessly offered it to his older brother, Prince William, to use for his proposal to Kate Middleton in 2010.

According to the original account — attributed to Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell — after Diana died tragically in 1997, her sons, then 15 and 12, were given an opportunity to select a keepsake from their mom’s possessions. Prince William picked a Cartier watch that his mom received on her 21st birthday and Harry got the sapphire engagement ring.

Burrell went on the explain that Diana’s ring was in Harry’s possession for 12 years, but when William broke the news to his brother that he was about to propose to his long-time girlfriend, Kate, the younger brother said, “Wouldn’t it be fitting if she had mummy’s ring? Then one day that ring will be sat on the throne of England.”

In his newly released memoir, the Duke of Sussex calls the story "nonsense."

In fact, it was William, not Harry, who had asked for the sapphire ring after their mom's passing. Harry did not object to his brother's request, and since he did not possess the ring, the sweet, noble scene described by Burrell could not have occurred.

Harry explained that the first time he got wind of his brother's engagement was when Buckingham Palace made the formal announcement in November of 2010. The brothers had traveled to Lesotho during the summer of 2010, but William did not mention at that time that he planned to propose.

This is not the first time Princess Diana's engagement ring has been cloaked in controversy. In 1981, the then-20-year-old Lady Diana shocked some members of the British royal family when she picked her engagement ring from the Garrard catalog.

In Diana’s eyes, the 18-karat white gold ring set with a 12-carat oval Ceylon sapphire surrounded by a halo of 14 round white diamonds was perfect. She loved it so much that she didn’t request any modifications or customizations.

Naysayers claimed that the ring was sub-standard because it was a stock item. They called it a “commoner’s ring” because any non-royal with a $60,000 budget could have purchased the exact piece.

Credits: Prince Harry photo by DoD News, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Princess Diana photo by John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA (Archived link), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Engagement ring replica by Ann Porteus from Tasmania, Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry in 2013 by Carfax2, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Vast Stretches of Opal-Rich 'Halos' on Mars Add Evidence of Its Watery Past

A research team analyzing archived data from NASA’s Curiosity rover have identified fractures and "halo" networks along the Martian landscape that are likely rich in opal. Since the iridescent gem is formed from water and silica, the findings provide additional evidence that the Red Planet had a watery past that could have supported microbial life.

Back in 2012, NASA sent the Curiosity rover to Mars to explore Gale Crater, a 96-mile-wide impact basin with a massive, layered mountain in the middle. The mission was supposed to last for three years, but was extended indefinitely as Curiosity continued to deliver invaluable information.

Researchers from Arizona State University have dug into the Curiosity rover's vast archive of images and found that these opal-rich "halos" of lighter-colored rock weren't isolated. Rather, they appear to exist all over Gale Crater. Curiosity's onboard neutron spectrometer was able to independently verify that fracture halos contained water-rich opal.

"Our new analysis of archival data showed striking similarity between all of the fracture halos we've observed much later in the mission," noted lead study author Travis Gabriel, who is currently a research physicist at the U.S. Geological Survey. "Seeing that these fracture networks were so widespread and likely chock-full of opal was incredible."

The researchers also noted that the vast subsurface fracture networks would have provided water-rich and radiation-shielded conditions that were potentially more habitable than those on the surface, where temperatures can descend to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit at night and reach barely 30 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

The findings were recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Looking forward, the presence of so much opal on the surface of Mars could have implications for space travelers because the structure of October's birthstone contains between 3% and 20% water.

Theoretically, when the opal is ground down and heated, the water can be extracted. The research team estimated that a 1-meter-long specimen could contain up to 5.7 liters (1.5 gallons) of water in the top 0.3 meters from the surface.

In February of 2021, NASA placed a second rover, Perseverance, on the surface of Mars. That research vehicle is currently searching for signs of life in the Jezero Crater, which is also suspected to be rich in opal-like material.

Here on Earth, fine opals are sourced mainly in Australia. Scientists believe that between 100 million and 97 million years ago, Australia’s vast inland sea, which was populated by marine dinosaurs, began retreating. As the sea regressed, a rare episode of acidic weather was taking place, exposing pyrite minerals and releasing sulphuric acid. As the surface of the basin dried further and cracked, silica-rich gel became trapped in the veins of the rock. Over time, the silica solidified to form opals.

In precious opal, the silica spheres are uniform in size and are stacked into an orderly arrangement, which gives the structure the ability to break visible white light into separate colors.

Credits: Curiosity rover image by NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Martian terrain image by Malin Space Science Systems/NASA/JPL-Caltech. Opal image by Dpulitzer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Music Friday: Silver Earrings, Gold Bracelet Play Key Roles in 1999's 'All I Left Behind'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you wonderful tunes with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, jewelry items play key roles in “All I Left Behind,” a hauntingly beautiful song featuring the harmonies of Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt.

Recounting the story about a woman who unselfishly puts her life on hold to go on the road with her lover, “All I Left Behind” details the items she lost along the way, which include her silver earrings and her dad’s gold bracelet. In the end, she loses her lover, as well.

Harris and Ronstadt sing, “Silver earrings in Wichita / Beaded moccasins in Tonopah / But I had you so, I just let them go.”

In a later verse, they tell the story of a cherished keepsake: “And the gold bracelet with my father’s name inscribed / On the back by the one who loved him all her life / The way I too could have loved you.”

Written by Harris, along with sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle, “All I Left Behind” appeared as the 12th track on Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, a Ronstadt/Harris duet album featuring songs written by some of the most successful names in the business, including Jackson Brown, Rosanne Cash, Sinéad O’Connor and Bruce Springsteen. Singing background vocals and playing the harmonica on the album was none other than Neil Young.

“It took more than 25 years, two divergent careers and plenty of false starts, near-misses and might-have-beens, but Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris have finally made an album together,” wrote Bill DeYoung for Goldmine magazine back in 1999.

“I believe that there’s a poetic thread that holds [the songs] together,” Harris told Goldmine. “I think they all deal with very deep issues about life and love and longing and loss. For me, an album has to be a string of pearls, but they’re all slightly different. They’re not perfectly matched pearls.”

The album — featuring the songbird soprano of Harris and the velvety alto of Ronstadt — earned critical acclaim, hitting #6 on the Billboard Country albums chart while earning several Grammy nominations.

(The photo, above, shows Ronstadt and Harris receiving honorary doctorate degrees from Boston's Berklee College of Music in 2009.)

The 75-year-old Emmylou Harris boasts a stellar career spanning seven decades. Since recording her first album in 1969, she has accumulated 14 Grammy awards and 48 Grammy nominations. She became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Ronstadt, 76, is a 2014 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has released 24 studio albums and charted 38 Billboard Hot 100 singles. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, a Tony nomination and a Golden Globe nomination.

We hope you enjoy the audio track of Harris and Ronstadt performing “All I Left Behind.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“All I Left Behind”
Written by Emmylou Harris, Kate McGarrigle and Anna McGarrigle. Performed by Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

All I left behind should come as no surprise
To me since I fell through the black hole of your eyes
Only little things inconsequential I could say
Of all I left behind with you along the lost highway

Silver earrings in Wichita
Beaded moccasins in Tonopah
But I had you so, I just let them go

The flannel shirt I wore to keep me from the cold
When we drove from Boston all the way to Buffalo
The leather boots I bought, so many miles ago
I took them off to follow you into the Ohio

Never did my armor feel so thin
Silk was all I had between me and your skin
Like Waterloo, I lost that too

And the gold bracelet with my father’s name inscribed
On the back by the one who loved him all her life
The way I, too, could have loved you

The Spanish shawl, I put across the broken shade
Of the lamp that lit the room that last night near Coeur d’Alene
Only little things inconsequential I could say
Of all I left behind with you along the lost highway

Credit: Photo by Eric Frommer, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Garnet Has Been Coveted by Kings and Commoners for Thousands of Years

Entombed with the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt and often mistaken for ruby, garnet has been coveted by kings and commoners alike for thousands of years.

The fabulous and versatile garnet comes in a wide array of natural colors, including pink, purple, orange, yellow, violet, green, black, brown — but is best known for its deep-red variety.

In fact, the official birthstone for January, gets its name from the Latin word “granatum,” meaning pomegranate seed. Fans of the tropical Asian fruit know the juicy seeds very closely resemble red garnets.

Pyrope garnets are the most common form of garnet and sport the popular deep-red color. According to the Smithsonian, pyrope garnets were often confused with ruby, due to their fiery appearance. In fact, the Greek word “pyropos” — the origin of pyrope — means “firelike.”

Impressively representing pyrope garnets in the National Gem Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, is the Victorian-era hairpin (above) that was donated in 1937 by Ales and Maria Herdlicka. The piece is set with Bohemian pyrope garnets sourced from an area that is now the Czech Republic.

The hairpin is typical of Bohemian garnet jewelry, which is distinguished by its close-set, rose-cut stones. Rose-cut gems are faceted on the top and flat on the bottom.

Until the late 19th century, Bohemia was the main source of the pyrope garnets, which were often incorporated into the popular jewelry of the Victorian Era (1837-1901), according to the Smithsonian.

Although the original Bohemian mines have been depleted, garnets are still found in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia.

In addition to the popular pyrope garnets, other varieties commonly seen in jewelry include almandine, andradite, demantoid, grossularite, hessonite, rhodolite, tsavorite, spessartine and uvarovite. Garnets achieve their range of color from trace amounts of iron, manganese, calcium or aluminum in their chemical makeup.

Credit: Photo by Chip Clark/Smithsonian.

Stuck in a Toilet for 21 Years, Engagement Ring Makes Triumphant Return

Shaina Day vividly remembers the exact moment 21 years ago when she accidentally flushed her engagement ring down the toilet at her boyfriend's parent's house in Lakeland, FL.

On Facebook, she wrote, "I was cleaning water off the counter with some toilet paper. My ring was sitting on the counter. I must have grabbed my ring by accident and tossed the TP. It was one of the worst things I ever did."

Day was so determined to recover her beloved ring — just days before her wedding — that she actually climbed into her future in-laws' septic tank and pumped every last drop of its nasty contents through a window screen and into a 55-gallon drum in the hopes of capturing it. Despite her heroic efforts, the ring was nowhere to be found.

Flash forward 21 years and Shaina and husband, Nick, are opening gifts on Christmas morning in the living room at Nick's parents' house.

But this would be no ordinary Christmas. The contents of one small bag, gifted to Shaina by her in-laws, was about to unleash a flood of emotions.

"It was kind of an ugly cry," she told WFLA-TV. "I sat there and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is my ring. This is my ring.' I’m wiping my eyes and mascara is going everywhere."

It turns out that Shaina's original engagement ring had been stuck for 21 years in the "S" bend of her in-laws' toilet drain. Thousands of flushes were not enough to push the ring through the bendy trap, which is designed to fill with fresh water and effectively stop odors from rising from the drainpipe.

Nick's parents had recently hired a plumber to replace the old toilet. The couple was astonished as the ring emerged when the plumber emptied the excess water from the toilet into the tub so he could keep the floor dry.

The engagement ring was somewhat damaged after being bounced around in the plumbing system for more than two decades, but the center stone remained intact. Nick's parents had the jewelry deep-cleaned and professionally wrapped before returning the prized possession to Shaina.

Shaina and Nick told a number of news outlets that they're still not certain if they will incorporate the engagement diamond into a new piece of jewelry, or hold onto the original ring so it can be handed down to future generations. The bonus of the latter strategy is that the ring comes with an amazing backstory.

Shaina told Fox 13 Tampa Bay that the original ring is "now more meaningful than ever."

And, what's Nick's takeaway from the experience?

"Check your toilets when you lose things," he joked.

Credits: Screen captures via WFLA.com.