Hitting it big on eBay: New extinct species, futuristic toilets

August 26, 2008 —

Richard Harrington, an officer in the UK's Royal Entomological Society, probably thought that chunk of amber with an insect trapped inside that he bid for on eBay would make a nice paperweight -- but he didn't expect that the dead critter would be a representative of a previously unknown species, one that would end up being named for him. Meanwhile, a racetrack owner was happy to buy some practically new high-tech toilets from the city of Seattle, whose hopes for the futuristic commodes were dashed when they became a home base for drug users and prostitutes. Seattle sold the toilets for less than one percent of what it paid for them just four years ago.