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Solar plane lands in New York City

A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said.  The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website.  Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
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The birds helped Charles Darwin refine his theory of evolution going extinct, according to a new study

Finches in the Galapagos Islands are being threatened by a parasitic fly that attacks their young.  A new mathematical model suggests that the birds may succumb to this pest in 50 years.  But the authors say that human intervention could alleviate the risk of extinction.  During his time on the Galapagos in the early 1830s, Charles Darwin noticed that finches on different islands in the chain were quite similar but had large variations in their beaks, depending on the local food source.  Because the islands - which belong to Ecuador - are so far from the mainland, Darwin concluded that the birds had begun as one species and then started to evolve into separate varieties of finch.  There are between 14 and 18 species on the Galapagos - but this study looked at one of the most common, the medium ground finch. Around 270,000 of these birds are found on Santa Cruz island.The finches are threatened by a nest fly which lays parasitic larvae in their nests which...
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A rare Philippine eagle chick has hatched in captivity

The eaglet, which has yet to be named, is the first of its kind to be born at a conservation centre in the southern Davao province in two years.  Thirty four eagles, including the hatchling, are currently being kept in a massive cage at the centre.  Only about 600 of the species are thought to be left in the wild.  Considered to be the country's national bird, the Philippine eagle has been classified as "critically endangered" because of the loss of its natural rainforest habitat and hunting.  The Philippine Eagle Foundation called the baby bird "a breakthrough" for their breeding programme with curator Anna Mae Sumaya said that the birth "gives hope" for the native population.  "At two days old, this baby eagle can already lift its head and get food from forceps. It's also very active, attentive and observant of its surroundings," Ms Sumaya said in a statement.In August, a rare eagle named Pamana was shot dead just two months afte...
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The chicken lived for 18 months without a head

Seventy years ago, a farmer beheaded a chicken in Colorado, and it refused to die. Mike, as the bird became known, survived for 18 months and became famous. But how did he live without a head for so long, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.  On 10 September 1945 Lloyd Olsen and his wife Clara were killing chickens, on their farm in Fruita, Colorado. Olsen would decapitate the birds, his wife would clean them up. But one of the 40 or 50 animals that went under Olsen's hatchet that day didn't behave like the rest.  "They got down to the end and had one who was still alive, up and walking around," says the couple's great-grandson, Troy Waters, himself a farmer in Fruita. The chicken kicked and ran, and didn't stop. It was placed in an old apple box on the farm's screened porch for  the night, and when Lloyd Olsen woke the following morning, he stepped outside to see what had happened. "The damn thing was still alive," says Waters.  "It's p...
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