New air quality guidelines published on Wednesday by the World Health Organization could prevent millions of deaths globally each year, the UN agency said. Fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, is the tiniest pollutant yet also among the most dangerous. When inhaled, it travels deep into lung tissue where it can enter the bloodstream and…… MORE
In his United National General Assembly debut on Tuesday, United States President Joe Biden declared a “new era” of US diplomacy, making a case for international cooperation as the world stands at an “inflection point in history.” But the President’s call for unity comes as the US is embroiled in a series of global controversies…… MORE
One close glimpse of a modern bird, especially around the eyes, and it may feel like you’re looking into the ancient past, when massive creatures walked the Earth and soared across its skies. It’s because birds are dinosaurs — they just happened to survive the mass extinction event that wiped out their large relatives 66…… MORE
The Taliban have requested representation at this week’s United Nations General Assembly, a move that is expected to kick off a diplomatic battle with the preexisting Afghan envoy. Afghanistan is currently represented at the UN by Ghulam Isaczai, an appointee of the country’s former democratic government, which crumbled under the Taliban’s advance last month. Rival…… MORE
In a rare address to the UN General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday made a major new climate commitment on behalf of the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China will not build any new coal-fired power projects abroad, Xi said in a pre-recorded speech. The vow marks a shift in policy around…… MORE
The amount of carbon emitted from severe wildfires that tore across many parts of the Northern Hemisphere this summer broke records, according to data from the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service published Tuesday. Intense blazes, including fires in hotspots in the Mediterranean, North America and Siberia, let off more than 2.7 billion metric tons…… MORE
Defined by their disappearance dinosaurs might appear to be evolutionary failures. Not so. Dinosaurs survived and thrived for 165 million years — far longer than the roughly 300,000 years modern humans have so far roamed the planet. They lived on every continent, munched on plants, snapped their jaws at insects, itched from fleas, suffered from…… MORE
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday the world would have to wait to hear from US President Joe Biden about whether the country would pay its fair share in climate finance — funds for undeveloped nations to face the climate crisis. Johnson and the UN Secretary-General António Guterres held a closed-door meeting of world…… MORE
As the fall season approaches and colder temperatures set in, there’s a silver lining to look up to — literally — as the harvest moon makes its debut on September 20, bringing plenty of bright moonlight. The full moon known as the harvest moon, as it traditionally gave farmers more time to harvest their summer-grown…… MORE
Dinosaurs must have had sex to reproduce but how they did it — with their neck frills, armored plates and tails tipped with spikes — isn’t exactly clear. No fossil has revealed two dinosaurs caught in the act — the only known vertebrates to be unequivocally preserved mating are a pair of 47 million-year-old turtles…… MORE
