Welcome to Music Friday when we bring great new songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today’s installment features Demi Lovato performing “Stone Cold,” her rousing 2015 ballad about the pain of watching an ex-boyfriend moving on to a new relationship. “This song hurts so unbelievably bad. And when I perform it on a TV show, …

Executives from two of the world’s top-producing diamond mines revealed to Bloomberg.com how new scanning technology is helping to preserve the largest diamonds during the often-damaging extraction process. Throughout history, diamond-bearing rock was typically drilled, blasted, hauled and put through crushing machines to get to the gems that may be hiding within. During that process, extremely large diamonds, some weighing …

Precious opals are unusual because 3% to 30% of their content is made up of water. So, when planetary scientists discovered opal fragments embedded in a meteorite that crashed down in Antarctica, they wondered if Earth’s life-giving water was actually ferried here by asteroids and meteorites eons ago. Led by Professor Hilary Downes of Birkbeck College London, a team of …

Two former cheerleaders from the University of Kentucky’s national championship squad posed for an engagement photo so amazing that social media skeptics insisted that it must have been Photoshopped. In the shot that was taken moments after Adam Sunderhaus proposed to Ashley Vennetti on the beach in Turks and Caicos, the couple is seen in a gravity-defying cheerleading pose called a “cupie.” …

Welcome to Music Friday and the first day of July. With a nod to this month’s official birthstone, we present Jackson Browne’s “In the Shape of a Heart,” a 1986 ballad that uses a ruby necklace to convey the pain the artist feels when he learns his lover has gone. Rolling Stone called it “one of Browne’s finest love songs.” …

The highly touted Lesedi La Rona — the tennis ball-sized rough diamond weighing 1,109 carats — was expected to smash the world record for any gemstone sold at auction. Instead, it went unsold at Sotheby’s London yesterday when the bidding stalled at $61 million, short of the undisclosed reserve price. Experts had conservatively pegged the value of the gem-quality, Type …

Devoted mom and Dreamgirls Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson turned to Instagram on Friday to show off a one-of-a-kind necklace highlighted by the first baby tooth of her son David. The tiny white tooth dangles from a simple gold heart on a fine chain. “I like making things my own. I call it jenniferizing! Thank u guys,” wrote the 34-year-old singer …

Three short films focusing on the mystical properties of rubies were premiered last Wednesday at the Hotel Café Royal in London.  Called “Ruby Inspired Stories,” the 60-second vignettes feature an international cast that includes actresses Kamay Lau, Sophie Cookson and Aditi Rao Hydari, as well as model Grace Guozhi. The videos were produced by Gemfields, a leading supplier of colored gemstones. The company maintains a core belief that …

The 7.45-carat diamond engagement ring that presidential candidate Donald Trump gave to second wife Marla Maples in 1991 is heading to the auction block in New York. After their divorce in 1999, Maples sold the ring at auction for $110,000. On Wednesday, the same ring is expected to fetch $300,000 to $350,000. The platinum ring by Harry Winston features an …

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you hot, new songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. In today’s installment, Meghan Trainor shows off her gold-and-diamond “MTRAIN” necklace in the viral video for her new hit single, “Me Too.” In this song about self-love, body image and empowerment, Trainor sings, “What’s that icy thing hangin’ …