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...
The latest estimate puts the population at about 14,600 - more than twice the previous figure, based on a survey of nests where the apes sleep. Ecologists say the rise is not due to population growth but because some apes were missed in past surveys. The species remains at serious threat from poaching and loss of forests, they report in Science Advances. Orangutans are the world's largest tree-climbing mammal - and Asia's only great ape. They were once found across South East Asia, but today are confined to two islands, Borneo and Sumatra. Their forest habitat is rapidly disappearing, putting their future in jeopardy.Until now, the total Sumatran orangutan population was put at 6,600 individuals, based on data from 2004. In the new survey in 2015, orangutans were found in unexpected places, including at higher altitudes in the mountains, forests recovering from logging and areas west of the Toba Lake that had not been previously examined. A...