[HN Gopher] Kyawthuite is so rare it's only ever been found once
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Kyawthuite is so rare it's only ever been found once
Author : pseudolus
Score : 187 points
Date : 2024-12-01 13:49 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencealert.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencealert.com)
| ginko wrote:
| >There, mineralogists were able to relate the stone to synthetic
| BiSbO4 - bismuth antimonate - though with the formula Bi3+Sb5+O4,
| an arrangement never before found in nature.
|
| How do they know it's not a synthetic stone to begin with?
| loa_in_ wrote:
| They assume that as there seem to be no production for this
| kind of material happening within the sphere of man made
| industry, anything found must be natural.
| bartread wrote:
| No, that's not correct: there are tubular inclusions in the
| gem that are a sign of shear stress, which indicates toward
| natural formation.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Is anyone producing it artificialy? It's a strange
| combination of oxides. You probably have to mix them, heat
| them a lot and use a lot of pressure, just to get pitty
| tiny cristals if you are lucky. In Wikipedia, I don't see
| any industrial application that can pay for tweaking the
| procces for years to get nice gems.
| v3ss0n wrote:
| I am from Myanmar and I am sure we didn't have technology to
| do that. We only have like 3 hrs a day of power and 24/7 full
| on war festival in WJ40k style factions waging war against
| the Chaos lord Min Aung Hlaing. We don't have infrastructure
| or technology, our technology now falling back to WW1 era
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| Unless it's the byproduct of some other valuable process, why
| would anyone go to the expense and trouble of figuring out
| how to make it?
| iamhamm wrote:
| "It also has hollow, tube-shaped inclusions called en echelon
| veins that are caused by shear stress - evidence of its natural
| formation."
| crazygringo wrote:
| Thanks. They put that sentence in a weird place, I had missed
| it too and had the same question.
| echelon wrote:
| Are there predictive models or novel techniques such as
| interferometry that allow us to make better guesses where
| minerals and other natural resources might be located?
|
| I've been hearing about startups driving around trying to detect
| gravitational distortions, or using satellite data. Are we
| getting better at this? Is there a lot of opportunity in the
| space for new methods and approaches?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| I guess LLM will be amazing with proper training from scratch
| since they are amazing with paterns and discovering paterns
| lukan wrote:
| A variant of stable diffusion maybe. Not large language
| models.
| Duckyroad wrote:
| Aren't LLMs and stable diffusion both generators? The are
| designed to generate a complex response to a simple prompt.
|
| If you want to identify potential natural resource
| deposits, that's good old data science with some machine
| learning. You feed them a bunch of data and out comes a
| simple map with probabilities.
|
| I suspect the relevant mining companies already have
| analysts who are doing everything they can to find
| deposits. No need for revolutionary startups.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Who actually owns the stone currently? Did Kyaw Thu give it to
| National History Museum of Los Angeles County, or is it only
| housed there whilst Kyaw Thu still the owner?
| mjlee wrote:
| Kyaw Thu is the given name. Burmese names don't use
| surnames/family names.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Ah, interesting thank you.
| dhosek wrote:
| I wonder if this is the last country to not use family names.
| Thailand's use of family names began in the 20th century, if
| I recall correctly.
| kseistrup wrote:
| Many Ugandans have two given names and no family name. And
| I know at least two Indonesians who only have a single
| name.
| Deukhoofd wrote:
| Iceland comes to mind, where patronyms and matronyms are
| still the standard.
| samatman wrote:
| I would consider all of surnames, patronyms, and
| matronyms, to be "family names" in the broad sense.
| They're based on who your family is, after all.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Wow. https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
| programmers-...
|
| That isn't how names work.
| adwn wrote:
| Can you be more specific, please?
|
| Also, I hate these kinds of lists. Are we just supposed
| to take the author by his word? He says:
|
| > _If you need examples of real names which disprove any
| of the above commonly held misconceptions, I will happily
| introduce you to several._
|
| Then why doesn't he? I'm really curious about that last
| one: "People have names."
| Symbiote wrote:
| A newborn baby doesn't have a name, and depending on the
| culture and country there could be days, months or even
| years before they get one.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > > If you need examples of real names which disprove any
| of the above commonly held misconceptions, I will happily
| introduce you to several.
|
| > Then why doesn't he? I'm really curious about that last
| one: "People have names."
|
| Indeed, I dare to suggest that, while there are people
| who don't have names, there is definitionally no real
| name that can disprove the misconception.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Your IT system may need to handle entries linked to
| people who don't have names, for example, recording that
| some treatment was given to a baby who died soon after
| birth before being given a name.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The Icelandic surnames are not constant through
| generations. You can have 10 grandkids, all with
| different surnames.
|
| Erik's son Leif is Leif Eriksson, Leifs kids Bjorn and
| Gudrun are Bjorn Leifsson and Gudrun Leifsdottir.
| jerkstate wrote:
| Bali also doesn't use family names. They have a birth order
| name and a given name.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| we don't do that for burmese names but you can guess the
| day of the birthdate from the names most of the time
| analog31 wrote:
| It's nobody's Bismuth.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Well done
| barrettondricka wrote:
| Ranking minerals by "most rare" is stupid. They simply don't have
| enough data.
|
| > you might mistaken it for amber or topaz
|
| I suspect that there are dozens of other extremely rare minerals
| out there that have not yet been found or mistaken for different
| ones. Correctly estimating their relative abundance is impossible
| and pointless as the rarest will be single cases. In fact, the
| rarest mineral ever has likely not been discovered yet. I bet
| there is some famous math/statistics problem about this kind of
| situation.
|
| And I wonder if any rare minerals have been classified by
| governments (or individuals) for whatever reasons. (Probably yes)
| andrewflnr wrote:
| As with most pronouncements like this, you just have to
| mentally append "(known so far)" to the end and it will make
| sense. That's the implicit context for almost all of them. We
| can only say what we know, so far. For the reasons you stated,
| I don't think anyone actually thinks they know the absolute
| rarest mineral on earth.
| HankB99 wrote:
| > currently housed safely at the National History Museum of Los
| Angeles County.
|
| I see that as a lead in to a heist movie.
|
| Aside from that... I wonder if there are other samples of this
| material yet to be found. Also, is it the only one known because
| it's the only one that's been properly identified?
| mrandish wrote:
| I'm no mineral expert but there's enough info in the TFA to
| suspect it's rare because no one is mining it or even looking for
| it. Apparently, it's very difficult to recognize in its natural
| form and easy to mistake for other less valuable minerals without
| lab testing.
|
| It's just hard for me to imagine the natural processes that
| formed this grain of it didn't form a lot more of it in the
| region where it was found.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I would have to imagine if they find it particularly
| interesting it will be justified to go look for more, so it
| probably will not be the rarest gem for long.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| The place where it was found was also where the find most of
| the now 2nd rarest gem Painite, supposed there are only 300
| specimens found. So I'm sure miners and scientists are
| hunting there, especially since these gems goes for prices
| similar that of diamonds
| facialwipe wrote:
| According to Warren Buffet, all of the world's mined gold would
| only form a 67 sq ft cube.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I think not quite; below link says a cube 22x22x22 m, which
| is about 67ft. But thats length side. Actual volume is just
| over 300k cubic feet, or in real units, 10,000 cubic meters.
|
| https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/how-much-gold
| amelius wrote:
| Or about 4.26 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
| nosrepa wrote:
| Finally a unit I can understand!
| aurizon wrote:
| Ah, a true answer to gold theft - esp snatch/grab, but there
| would be filers galore...
| jnurmine wrote:
| Also not a mineral expert -- I didn't really understand
| anything from Wikipedia's description, "monoclinic with space
| group I2/c, and is isostructural with...".
|
| But since it's naturally occuring, perhaps even existing
| bismuth mines elsewhere have more of these rare grains, if one
| knows how to look for them.
| yapyap wrote:
| The rarest mineral is so rare it hasn't been found yet
| jbverschoor wrote:
| As Dick Dastardly said: I'm so sneaky, I can't even trust
| myself!
| ada1981 wrote:
| >>The world's only known piece of kyawthuite is currently housed
| safely at the National History Museum of Los Angeles County.<<
|
| A shame that it's not housed in a museum of its native origin.
| throwaway2562 wrote:
| Why is it a shame exactly?
| ada1981 wrote:
| Have you been to LA?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Do you know any good museums in Myanmar worth visiting?
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| none
| ada1981 wrote:
| I thought this was a thread specific throw away account due
| to the "kyaw".
| JadeNB wrote:
| This kind of reasoning is self-perpetuating, though: there
| are no good museums here, so interesting things need to be
| shipped abroad to be exhibited properly, so there are no good
| museums here because there's nothing interesting to put in
| them ....
|
| (I don't necessarily blame any individual for this--I think
| most of us are sometimes, or always, part of one system or
| another that everyone hates but that is the result of
| constant rational decisions.)
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Could it be that the current political situation in Myanmar
| isn't the most stable?
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| This is really only a salient concern when foreigners abscond
| with things, but this was discovered by a Burmese geologist and
| it seems that it was his decision to house the mineral in the
| US. I would add that there is a big difference between natural
| science objects versus cultural artifacts.
| v3ss0n wrote:
| It's lucky that the founder decided to host it at LA. It could
| have been gone at war if it's today, we are at full scale war
| now. Or the junta Chief would had traded to get some more MIGs.
| ada1981 wrote:
| As I said, it's a shame.
| throwaway2562 wrote:
| Despite all evidence to the contrary.
| ada1981 wrote:
| You are pleased with the current situation in Myanmar? Do
| tell.
| whatio wrote:
| "Rare" is being used in the same sense as "rare earth elements,"
| not in the typical, common usage of rare. The "rare" part comes
| from:
|
| 1. They rarely form concentrated ore deposits, instead being
| widely dispersed throughout rock formations
|
| 2. The elements are very chemically similar to each other, making
| them difficult and expensive to separate and purify for
| industrial use
| creddit wrote:
| [flagged]
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| Or the headline
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without breaking the site
| guidelines.
|
| Your comment would be fine with just the second sentence.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| deadbabe wrote:
| Probably because it's just a useless rock?
| abeppu wrote:
| I'm a little surprised there isn't a giant k-way tie for minerals
| that have only been found once. Like, I get that minerals arise
| from natural processes, and it's a big planet, so maybe every
| process should have a potential to occur more than once and
| perhaps in more than one place -- but many kinds of natural
| processes create a long-tail distribution where there's a huge
| number of very rare things.
| dang wrote:
| See also
| https://web.archive.org/web/20160712224355/http://www.mmtime...
| (linked from the article)
| EGreg wrote:
| How about Cummingtonite?
|
| They say it's commonly found, but it was named after Cummington
|
| (I found out about it by watching
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya_D9IwB3-s)
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