Lottery Post Journal

Lesotho mine yields one of world's largest diamonds

Miners in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho have found one of the world's largest diamonds, a near-flawless white gem weighing nearly 500 carats, mining group Gem Diamonds said on Sunday.

The diamond was discovered in the Letseng Mine on September 8, the company said in a statement. It has been analyzed by experts in Antwerp and found to weigh 478 carats, with very few inclusions and of outstanding color and clarity.

"It has the potential to yield one of the largest flawless D color round polished diamonds in history," the company said.

Letseng is one of the most productive mines in history -- four of the world's 20 largest rough diamonds have been found at the mine, including the three largest found this century.

Before it is cut into gems it is hard to value the diamond, but a spokesman for Gem Diamonds said a similar weight stone with lesser-quality color and clarity had recently sold for $12 million (around 5.5 million pounds).

"Preliminary examination of this remarkable diamond indicates that it will yield a record breaking polished stone of the very best color and clarity," Clifford Elphick, the chief executive of Gem Diamonds, said in a statement.

The minister for natural resources in Lesotho, an impoverished mountain kingdom in eastern South Africa, praised the productivity of the mine, one of the highest in the world at more than 3,000 meters (10,000 feet).

"Once again Letseng has proved its ability to produce extraordinary diamonds and continues to place Lesotho at the forefront of diamond producing countries," Monyane Moleleki said in a statement.

Letseng is 70 percent owned by Gem Diamonds and 30 percent owned by the government of Lesotho.

The world's largest diamond is the Cullinan, discovered in South Africa in 1905. It weighed more than 3,100 carats before it was cut into more than one hundred separate gems, many of which are part of the British crown jewels.

Source

Wow, Chevy's new Volt electric car, coming out as a 2010 model (so I guess next summer or fall), looks fantastic!

Check out the site: http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

The video is really clever and fun to watch.

The car itself looks really nice, which is such a refreshing change.  I am tired of the ugly designs chosen by the Japanese automakers for their electric cars.  Why do they have to make electric cars ugly?  To hold back demand?

The Volt is designed to plug into a regular household outlet (nice!) and will go for 40 miles without a drop of gas.

The web link above has more info — check it out!

For those who have installed Google's new "Chrome" (I really don't like that name) Web browser, there is already the first update available, but you may not be aware of it.

I have read about a major security flaw in the browser lately, so I was surprised when I did not see the browser "update itself" at some point.

I just happened to be poking around in the interface and noticed a small message at the bottom of the "About" window stating that an update was available.

So if you have Google Chrome, here's how to get the update:

1. Click the button in the upper-right corner with the "wrench" symbol on it.
2. Select "About Google Chrome" from the menu.
3. At the bottom of the About window (to the left of the OK button) you will see a message that either states that the browser is up-to-date, or that an update is available.
4. If an update is available, click the message to install it, and then (as it instructs) close all instances of the Chrome browser that you have open.  (After they are all closed you can re-open them.)