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TechnographOdds and Ends: Dinosaur dung sells at NYC auction for nearly $1,000
By The Associated Press
Posted: 5/2/08 Section: News
NEW YORK - A pile of dinosaur dung 130 million years old sold at a New York auction Wednesday for nearly $1,000.
The prehistoric deposit fetched $960, said a spokeswoman for Bonhams New York. Its pre-auction estimate was $450.
The fossilized dung is from the Jurassic era, the auction house said. It looks like a rock on the outside and a colorful mineral inside.
The buyer was Steve Tsengas of Fairport Harbor, Ohio. The 71-year-old owns OurPets, a company that sells products to treat dog and cat waste.
Tsengas bought the dung in hopes of motivating his employees and using it as a marketing tool by displaying it at the company's booth at trade shows, he said.
"Poop," he said, "is a big business in the pet industry."
Alaska town picks to keep pink for federal building
KETCHIKAN, Alaska - It's easy for tourists to find the city's historic Federal Building - it's the only big, pink building in the middle of town.
Now the 1938 landmark needs a paint job, and the federal government has a question for Ketchikan residents: keep it pink or go with cream?
Paint selection isn't normally brought to the attention of the public, but officials thought it was important in the case of the five-story Federal Building, one of 2,300 federally owned structures on the National Register of Historic Places.
National Register guidelines call for a historically appropriate color, in this case cream, but there is leeway if the community prefers pink, said Rebecca Nielsen of the General Services Administration.
The preference at a sparsely attended public meeting Tuesday was pink.
Amanda Welsh said painting the building a color that matched Ketchikan's gray weather would be "dismally boring.
"I'm here to support the pink," she said.
The L-shaped concrete building is significant for its modern European-influenced architecture. It was painted pink - or salmon, as some prefer to call the shade - in the early 1990s. A local committee chose the color.
The prehistoric deposit fetched $960, said a spokeswoman for Bonhams New York. Its pre-auction estimate was $450.
The fossilized dung is from the Jurassic era, the auction house said. It looks like a rock on the outside and a colorful mineral inside.
The buyer was Steve Tsengas of Fairport Harbor, Ohio. The 71-year-old owns OurPets, a company that sells products to treat dog and cat waste.
Tsengas bought the dung in hopes of motivating his employees and using it as a marketing tool by displaying it at the company's booth at trade shows, he said.
"Poop," he said, "is a big business in the pet industry."
Alaska town picks to keep pink for federal building
KETCHIKAN, Alaska - It's easy for tourists to find the city's historic Federal Building - it's the only big, pink building in the middle of town.
Now the 1938 landmark needs a paint job, and the federal government has a question for Ketchikan residents: keep it pink or go with cream?
Paint selection isn't normally brought to the attention of the public, but officials thought it was important in the case of the five-story Federal Building, one of 2,300 federally owned structures on the National Register of Historic Places.
National Register guidelines call for a historically appropriate color, in this case cream, but there is leeway if the community prefers pink, said Rebecca Nielsen of the General Services Administration.
The preference at a sparsely attended public meeting Tuesday was pink.
Amanda Welsh said painting the building a color that matched Ketchikan's gray weather would be "dismally boring.
"I'm here to support the pink," she said.
The L-shaped concrete building is significant for its modern European-influenced architecture. It was painted pink - or salmon, as some prefer to call the shade - in the early 1990s. A local committee chose the color.
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