What Makes Gems So Precious? with Dr. Gabriela Farfan

Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Comedy, Society & Culture, Education, Self-improvement

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2023

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re dripping in jewels this week on Getting Curious! What does it mean for a diamond to be “hard”? Are lab-grown gems made to perfection? What’s the difference between rubies and pink sapphires? Dr. Gabriela Farfan joins Jonathan to discuss the science and art behind the dazzling, multifaceted world of gems and minerals. Dr. Gabriela Farfan is the Coralyn Whitney Curator of Gems and Minerals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She began collecting minerals at a young age and turned her hobby into a career as a mineralogist, geochemist, and the first woman and Latina to become Curator-in-Charge of the National Gem Collection. You can follow Dr. Farfan on Twitter @gabriela_farfan and on Instagram @the.mineralogist. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History is on Twitter @nmnh and Instagram @smithsoniannmnh. Curious for more? Check out these resources from Dr. Farfan: What is a Mineral? The AMNH’s “GeoGallery” Hope Diamond Whitney Flame Topaz Dom Pedro Aquamarine Chalk Emerald Carmen Lucia Ruby Lion of Merelani Tsavorite Garnet And check out these episodes from the Getting Curious archive: Does Groundwater Go With The Flow? How Does Dust Impact Earth’s Climate? How Major Are Volcanoes? Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from past Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our producer is Chris McClure. Our editor is Andrew Carson. Production support from Julie Carrillo and Emily Bossak. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Getting Curiousness is Jonathan Vaness. I'm so excited about this episode because
0:09.3	I wanted to learn about this for so long. I feel like ever since queer I came out, like
0:14.3	once a year since 2018, I realized that like I can afford something that I never thought
0:19.6	that I could. Like the first year was like, oh my gosh, I can have a house. And then like 2021
0:25.2	was like, oh my gosh, I can get jewels. I never knew I could wear jewelry. Like I thought
0:29.5	I wasn't a jewelry person. Next thing I know, I'm a fucking jewelry person. Like I love jewels.
0:35.0	I love a mineral. And it's interesting because my first thing I ever collected was rocks. My
0:39.5	favorites were geodes. So it really feels like this like return to this like childhood joy,
0:44.9	which leads us to our guest Gabriella Farpian, who is the Coralyn W Whitney curator of gems and
0:52.3	minerals at the Smithsonian National Museum of a Natural History Honey. Gabriella is a Chilean
0:58.4	American and first woman and first Latina to ever be curator in charge of the National
1:03.7	Gem Collection, AKA no better person in the world to teach us about gems and minerals.
1:11.1	Like there's no better person Gabriella, how are you? Well, I'm doing great because I am currently
1:16.6	sitting in the Natural History Museum in my office in our Department of Mineral Sciences. So life
1:23.7	is great. How cool. So what's it like to research gems and minerals? Like what do you even study
1:30.3	and like were you just mining your own business and you're like, I'm going to become a
1:34.2	Mineralogist? A Mineralogist? Yes, yes. Not a jualogist. It's not a jual. No. No, you could
1:42.4	be a gemologist. That's another one. But mineralogist is the study of minerals.
1:48.1	So you're literally mining your own business. You're in the Smithsonian as the first Latina to
1:52.3	ever be curator in charge of the National Gem Collection. So you are just like literally
1:56.4	surrounded by like the National Collection of Gems. Are in. Yes. Yes. Okay. So how do you handle and
2:04.4	store everything at this Smithsonian? Like it doesn't need to be like no humidity,
	...

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