SCIENCE

Life somehow managed to survive during this time called "Snowball Earth," and a new study offers a deeper understanding as to why.

Questionnaires with a list of 70 personality indicators were filled out by veterinarians and feeders who work with the tigers on a daily basis.

A new study from the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health found that, by mid-century, dams and reservoirs will lose about 1.65 trillion cubic metres of water storage capacity to sediment.

If all goes as planned, the SUV-sized satellite will produce research data within several months.

The announcement has the scientific community abuzz, as nuclear fusion is considered by some to be the energy of the future, particularly as it produces no greenhouse gases, leaves little waste and has no risk of nuclear accidents.

The most powerful observatory sent into space succeeds the Hubble telescope, which is still operating, and began transmitting its first cosmic images in July.

The instrument, known as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), will be the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope.

The meeting follows crucial climate change talks in Egypt in November, where leaders failed to forge any breakthroughs on scaling down fossil fuels and slashing planet-warming emissions.

The researchers studied an exotic object called a blazar at the center of a large elliptical galaxy named Markarian 501 located about 460 million light years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Hercules.

The "forest ghost" which lives in tree-covered mountains straddling Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, is now among the world's most endangered mammals, scientists warn.

The BASIC, constituting Brazil, India, South Africa and China, reiterated their right to use fossil fuels in the interim period during the eventual transformation to clean energy sources.

"Our time is coming. And we hope that that is on Wednesday," said Mike Sarafin, the manager of the much-delayed Artemis 1 mission, at NASA headquarters.

Soil erosion could lead to a 10% loss in global crop production by 2050, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

A $3 billion water transfer project between Lesotho and Botswana and a $10 million plan to improve the public water system in Mauritius were among dozens of projects listed, including 19 in Africa.

As host of COP27, Egypt has made the issue of "loss and damage," or compensation for losses from climate-related disasters, a focus.

The price of carbon needs to average at least $75 a ton globally by the end of the decade for global climate goals to succeed, the head of the International Monetary Fund told Reuters.

Human Rights Watch on Sunday warned that "dozens of people" calling for protests had been detained.

At the opening ceremony on Sunday, COP27 officials urged governments to keep up efforts to combat climate change despite the economic crises linked to Russia's war on Ukraine.

In Africa alone, extreme weather events have killed at least 4,000 people and displaced 19 million so far this year, a study by the Carbon Brief news service said last week.

The crisis has affected nearly half of Kenya's regions and at least four million out of its 50 million people.

Many of an older set of unexplained aerial phenomena, or UAPs, are still officially categorized as unexplained, with too little data analysis to draw conclusions, the Times said.

Researchers fear a threshold might soon be crossed, beyond which small changes in temperature could lead to an exponential increase in area burned in that region.

Expectations are high from a world justifiably anxious about its climate-addled future as deadly floods, heat waves and storms across the planet track worst-case climate scenarios.

Just days before the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, the announcement is in line with commitments made by the centre-left coalition government when it took power in 2021.

Levels of the most dangerous particles -- PM2.5, so tiny they can enter the bloodstream -- were 588 per cubic metre early on Thursday morning, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

In Africa, glaciers in all World Heritage sites will very likely be gone by 2050, including at Kilimanjaro National Park and Mount Kenya, UNESCO warned.

Felix Mauricio, a member of the Uru Indigenous community, used to be a fisherman. Now 82, he gazes over a barren landscape and chews coca leaf to suppress the hunger pains.

In Africa, home to more than 95 percent of the world's 627,000 malaria deaths in 2020, the parasite is mostly spread in rural areas preferred by the dominant Anopheles gambiae group of mosquitoes.

Climate change, pollution and exploitation by man are putting existential pressure on the world's second longest river, on which half a billion people depend for survival.