Sure, you can score vintage cars, one-of-a-kind guitar straps, even the odd linkurl:mass spectrometer;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15309/ on linkurl:eBay.;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15331/ But now it seems that a place in science history can also be purchased on the popular auction website. So learned entomologist linkurl:Richard Harrington,;http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/Research/Centres/index.php?Centre=BCC vice president of the United Kingdom's Royal Entomological Society, when he recently bought an insect encased in a chunk of pre-historic amber on the site. As the linkurl:BBC;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7572052.stm reported, the insect turned out to be a previously undescribed linkurl:aphid;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/21057/ species that has been extinct for millions of years. Harrington, who is deputy science director at the centre for bioenergy and climate change at agricultural research organization Rothamsted Research, bought the pill-size bead of Balkan amber from a Lithuanian eBay user for 20 British pounds and sent it to renowned fossil aphid expert Ole Heie in Copenhagen. Heie determined that the insect, a member of the __Mindarus__ genus, was new to...
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