Bird beats humans, breaks its own flight duration record

Discovery News' Jennifer Viegas passes along word of the latest endurance feat achieved by the bar-tailed godwit, which can fly nonstop for eight days straight. That's far longer than any flight by a human-made aircraft (for example, the 83-hour jaunt by QinitiQ's unmanned solar-powered craft). I feel obliged to point out, however, that this record applies only to atmospheric flight. Even the bar-tailed godwit would be impressed by the long-flying International Space Station (12 years and counting) or the Voyager probes (still sending data after almost 33 years of nonstop flight). That is, if the godwit had enough wit to be impressed.