Interesting...check this out
 

i was just reading Modern Dog and i saw an ad for this website

http://www.perpetua.us/

i heard about the company that takes ashes and makes a stone out of them of a unique color. But this is the first time i'm hearing about this one. i think its a cool idea but i just can't see it being true. you can "see" your pets DNA??? now, i have a BS in Biology and i know a thing or two about DNA, and i just don't think this is possible. i read the whole site and i just don't get it. what do you think?

I don't know if it is possible but their product is beautiful...I'd be interested to know.

I think that's really cool, if it appeals to you.
I just want to say one thing, and if there's anyone who knows differently, I'd LOVE to hear from them on this subject....

When/if you take your pet to be cremated, obviously, they go somewhere else (at least in MY experience the vet contracts with a company to do this), and they ask you if you want a "communal" cremation or a ...crap, I forget how they worded it, but it was basically a private, or individual (which I took for being ONLY MY pet)cremation; and I paid extra for it and got "their" ashes back in a lovely little cedar box with a little padlock on it with a key to it. I intended to have some sort of piece of jewelry made that would somehow encaspulate a bit of both my bird's ashes so I could wear it always. However, I hadn't decided exactly what I wanted to design and I made the mistake, mostly out of curiosity, of opening up the boxes and what do I find? The ashes of each one is TOTALLY different looking than the other one (and they were the SAME kind of bird)...I'm talking WAYYYYY different looking from each other's ashes:mad: . Now I don't even know if I actually got ANY of THEIR ashes at all:( . So, what I'm saying is, what is the use of doing something like this as a memento or to have something close to your heart when it might not even be your own baby's remains? HOW do you know? It's really frustrating and now I'm feeling like I've been scammed once again by the vets....is there any way to really KNOW that that's YOUR pet in there? I figure there are some vet techs at least here who might know the truth here.

I don't see how they could make something as tiny as DNA visible. You can't even see a single cell without a microscope so of course you can't see the DNA... I think its fake.

"The DNA is normally tightly compressed into chromosomes; modern scientific methods can liberate it into something that can be seen with the naked eye, studied, and stored in forms like the Life Jewel™."

I definitely think this is some kind of scam. I'm in a Genetics class right now and I highly doubt there is any way to "expand" the nucleotide bases or hydrogen bonds into something that's visible.

I agree, it's probably a scam.

nvngirl that is terrible! I'm so sorry that happened to you. It's hard enough to lose a pet, then not even get the right ashes:mad: Did you call the vet out on this?

I can't read the site as thoroughly as I'd like because I have to get ready for work, but based on what I was able to gleen by looking at it quickly...it seems like they are just incorporating you pets' DNA into a piece of jewelry, as opposed to your pets' DNA actually BEING the jewelry. I think that the double helix you see is part of the design (made of a precious metal), and that your pets' DNA is INSIDE of that part of the design.

In other words...picture a 14K gold pendant shaped like a human heart...add a drop of human blood inside the pendant, and then market it by saying, "wear your lovers' heart around your neck."

I don't think you're actually seeing the DNA, and whether or not to trust that it is indeed YOUR pets' DNA in there would have to be a matter of trust...which, based on the prices they charge, would be a real stretch...IMHO

it is a very cool idea if its not a scam. i am tempted to do it.

It sounds really cool, but I think with things like that, its all based on trust.

I know there's a company that will turn your human corpse into a synthetic diamond. I remember reading about it and thinking, "hey, that's what I want when I die..."

Taken from the website--



Q: What is DNA and why it so special?
A: DNA is the substance in the bodies of all living things that stores the unique genetic information that, in part, makes us what we are. The DNA is normally tightly compressed into chromosomes; modern scientific methods can liberate it into something that can be seen with the naked eye, studied, and stored in forms like the Life Jewel™.

Q: Where, exactly, is the pet’s DNA in the Life Jewel™?
A: The colored material wound around the sterling wire helix is the actual DNA. At one stage in its processing, DNA looks like a gossamer web. Normally it is a semi-opaque, white color; in the Perpetua process the DNA strands bind a luminescent tint of your choice and rest in the channel of the wire helix.

I'm pretty sure it's actually supposed to be your pet's DNA....

it seems to me that they put it in the helix, not that the helix in the crystal is the double helix of the dna, you can't see the dna, but it's enclosed within the jewelery