First established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989, it marked the day when the world collectively crossed the five billion population mark on July 11, 1987.
At present, the world holds a population of about 7.8 billion people. However, in the next 30 years, it is expected to increase by a whopping 2 billion, rising to nearly 9.7 billion by 2050.
The main objective of the day is to raise awareness about the importance of family planning, adoption, gender equality, poverty, maternal health, and human rights.
The theme for 2020 is safeguarding the health and rights of women and girls around the world.
As per the projection estimates from the UN, every year, nearly 83 million people are added to the rapidly growing worldwide population. With this, the global population is projected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion by 2100.
The World Population Prospects 2019 has estimated China and India to be the most populated countries in the world. Currently, about 61% of the total global population lives in Asia (4.7 billion), followed by 17% in Africa (1.3 billion), and 10% in Europe (750 million).
As per the UN, Africa is the fastest-growing continent in terms of numbers, and more than half of the global population growth will be taking place in Africa by 2050.
As per the UN, three main factors which influence the population growth include fertility rates, increasing longevity, and international migration.
Overall, the population explosion remains an enormous concern, as it can impact the planet in myriad ways—from increasing pollution to deforestation.
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While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.