1) A 39-foot South Dakotan T. rex skeleton, which seemingly vanished after being purchased by an anonymous buyer in October 2020 for $31.8m, has resurfaced. It was reportedly shipped to the UAE for display in the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi… which reminds us of the whole $276k Nic Cage Mongolian fossil debacle.
2) In February, the average price of a new car in the US was $46,085, up $4.7k from a year prior. Aside from inflation and supply chain pressures, dealers are running up prices, with buyers paying $900+ above sticker price (compared to $1.5k below a year ago.)
3) After heading to Mars with a 5-flight mission, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter recently completed its 22nd flight, staying afloat for 101.4 seconds and hitting 33 feet of altitude. Ingenuity has now flown a combined 15k+ feet for ~39 minutes. Not bad, NASA.
4) In 2021, there were 1,040 artists who earned $1m+ in Spotify royalties, up from 860 in 2020. There were 130 artists who made $5m+ on Spotify, 52.6k that made $10k+, and 238k+ songs that got 1m+ streams.
5) An Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe is expected to be auctioned in May for $200m. A friendly reminder that, in 2017, da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi was expected to go for $100m and ended up selling for $450.3m, so… Meanwhile, a CryptoPunk NFT could go for 5.5k ETH (~$17m), valued that high mostly because it’s wearing a hoodie.