The experimental Solar Impulse plane, powered by the sun, completed a transcontinental trip across the United States late Saturday, touching down in New York despite a rip in the fabric of one wing.

The giant, single-person plane landed at New York's John F Kennedy airport at 0311 GMT, ahead of its originally scheduled time due to a 2.5 meters (8 foot) long tear that appeared on the fabric of the lower side of the left wing.

Toxic radioactive substances have once again been detected in groundwater at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, its Japanese operator said on Sunday, the latest in a series of incidents at the tsunami-battered complex.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said tests showed that tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used in glow-in-the-dark watches, was present at levels 10 times the permitted rate.

Home to meditating monks and Himalayan nomads, the sleepy kingdom of Bhutan has set its sights on becoming an unlikely energy powerhouse thanks to its abundant winding rivers.

Hydropower plants have already harnessed the country's water flows to light up nearly every Bhutanese home, generating electricity that is sent to remote villages by cables strung through rugged mountain terrain.

A female giant panda donated by China to Taiwan four years ago gave birth to a cub on Saturday after being artificially inseminated, the Taipei city government said.

Yuan Yuan and her partner Tuan Tuan have become star attractions in Taipei Zoo in the island's capital since their arrival from China in late 2008 amid improving ties between the two sides.

Scientists have added dozens of Australian species to the family of small worm-like snakes called Scolecophidia, which are some of the least-understood creatures on Earth.

Researchers from France, Australia and the United States analysed the genomes of 741 animals from 27 recognized species in a subgroup known as Australian blind snakes.

Five dead crocodiles, 14 critically endangered turtles and a cache of other rare species have been found in the home of a suspected wildlife trader in one of the Philippines' biggest slums, the government said Friday.

The juvenile saltwater crocodiles, as well as 90 birds, were killed by the trader or his aides shortly before police and environment officials raided the place Wednesday, Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said.

An intrepid Australian bird-spotter has captured the best evidence in a century of a live "night parrot", a rare creature that ranks among the world's most enigmatic avian species, scientists said Thursday.

John Young, a naturalist photographer, presented photos and video of the small, yellowish-green parrot to experts at the Queensland Museum this week which government scientist Leo Joseph said "make it seem very clear that he's found the bird".

Chinese beachgoers walk by an algae covered public beach in Qingdao, northeast Shandong province, on July 4, 2013. The seas off China have been hit by their largest ever growth of algae, ocean officials …more

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European astronomers said on Friday they had devised a technique to detect water in the atmosphere of planets orbiting other stars.

Using a telescope in Chile, they teased out a tell-tale infra-red signature from water in the atmosphere of a gassy planet called HD 189733b, which orbits its star every two days and is hot enough to melt steel.

Global warming accelerated since the 1970s and broke more countries' temperature records than ever before in the first decade of the new millennium, U.N. climate experts said Wednesday.

A new analysis from the World Meteorological Organization says average land and ocean surface temperatures from 2001 to 2010 rose above the previous decade, and were almost a half-degree Celsius above the 1961-1990 global average.