L London, May 20 : A British woman left distressed over the death of her pet cat has turned him into a one-third-of-a-carat black diamond with the help of a U.S. firm.  Sue Rogers then had the rock set in a gold ring so that her beloved pet could stay with her all the time. Black cat Sooty is believed to be the only black diamond in the world created from a pile of ashes. Scientists with Chicago's LifeGem, which turns dead people and animals into everlasting gems, said that they created the diamond by extracting 2 grams of carbon from 100 grams of the cat's ashes. They placed the carbon in a diamond press, where it was exposed to temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius and placed under one million pounds of pressure for two weeks. The 45-year-old woman from Ilfracombe, Devon, wanted the diamond to match Sooty's jet-black colour so the company had to create a new technique to accomplish it. Once it had grown the gem was placed under electrons for 24 hours, which gradually changed the colour from clear to black. The result was a stunning orb, which has been cut and polished and set in a gold band surrounded by white diamonds to look like a flower. It cost more than 2,000 pounds. "When Sooty died I was shocked because she was only 11-years-old and hadn't been ill or anything. It just happened very suddenly, Telegraph quoted Sue, as saying. "One day I got home from work and she was finding it hard to breathe so I rushed her to the vet but she died. She was a wonderful cat who never went outside and was a genuine scaredy-cat. "I asked the company if they did black diamonds and they said they had never done one before. But thankfully they were able to and now Sooty is a black diamond. "They use ashes, but not all of them, so it is still possible to scatter some ashes in the traditional way as well," she said. David Hampson, chief executive for LifeGem UK, said: "This is the first black diamond in the world that has been created from ashes in this way." (ANI) © 2007 ANI TAGS: World-news 
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