AFP Technology

The spiralling global population and over-consumption are threatening the future health of the planet, according to conservation group WWF.The demand on natural resources has become unsustainable and is putting "tremendous" pressure on the planet's biodiversity, the body said on Tuesday.In its latest survey of the Earth's health, WWF named Qatar as the country with the largest ecological footprint, followed by its Middle Eastern neighbours Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.Denmark and the...Read Full Story

An electric-powered van launched a trip Thursday to cross eastern and southern Africa, in an expedition designed to showcase the endurance of the vehicles and promote green energy use."We want to break the cliches of electric-powered vehicles," said driver Xavier Chevrin, speaking at the expedition launch in the Kenyan capital, at the offices of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which is backing the trip.The vehicle will set off Friday on an estimated 5,000 kilometre (3,000 miles) journey...Read Full Story

Scientists said Monday a new fossil discovery suggested Australia's dinosaurs were cosmopolitan globe-trotters, unlike the "unique weirdos" of its current wildlife.Palaeontologist Erich Fitzgerald said an ankle bone fossil found 87 kilometres (54 miles) from Melbourne indicated that meat-eating dinosaurs known as ceratosaurs lived in what is now Australia some 125 million years ago.He said the finding suggested that back then Australia had the same large, well-known predators such as...Read Full Story

The European Space Agency (ESA) said Thursday it plans to launch an explorer craft in 2022 to examine Jupiter's icy moons for conditions that may be conducive to primitive life.The Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) will launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane rocket, arriving at the planet by 2030 for at least three years of detailed observations, the agency said in a statement.Under the multi-million euro mission, the spacecraft will study the gas giant planet's atmosphere and the...Read Full Story

Just as wealth and social status are often linked to good health in humans, the animal kingdom too has its benefits for those at the top of the hierarchy, according to a US study out Monday.After studying 27 years worth of data on baboons in Kenya, researchers found that alpha males were less likely to get sick and recovered faster from injuries than those at the lower rungs of society.The findings were a surprise, since previous research has shown that high-ranking males face surging stress...Read Full Story

Climate change has accelerated in the past decade, the UN weather agency said Friday, releasing data showing that 2001 to 2010 was the warmest decade on record.The 10-year period was also marked by extreme levels of rain or snowfall, leading to significant flooding on all continents, while droughts affected parts of East Africa and North America."The decade 2001-2010 was the warmest since records began in 1850, with global land and sea surface temperatures estimated at 0.46 degrees Celsius...Read Full Story

The campaign Europe-vs-Facebook, run by an Austrian law student, said Thursday it had gathered the 7,000 comments required for the social networking website to review its privacy policy.The announcement came as Facebook announced a price of $38 per share for its record-setting initial public offering, which would give the leading social network a giant market value of $104 billion (83 billion euros).Facebook on May 11 published changes to its privacy policy, after Austrian law student Max...Read Full Story

Sluggish moves to counter the rising threat of cyber-attacks can be blamed on a generation of policymakers out of touch with rapid technological change, a senior US official said Monday."The truth is there are a lot of senior officials in many countries who barely even know how to use an email," Rose Gottemoeller, US acting under-secretary for arms control and international security, said during a visit to Estonia."The change will come with the new generation," she told the audience at a...Read Full Story

Internet security researchers warned that foreign policy and human rights websites are being booby-trapped by hackers in what appears to be cyber espionage.As of Monday websites for Amnesty International Hong Kong, the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Center for Defense Information (CDI) remained rigged to slip "hostile" code onto visitors' computers, according to Shadowserver Foundation devoted to tracking and reporting Internet threats."These attackers are not spreading...Read Full Story

A fierce row over EU moves to label oil from Canada's massive tar sands reserves as highly polluting looked set to deepen when talks between experts from the 27-nation bloc ended in stalemate Thursday.Canada, which had threatened to retaliate should the European Union tag its tar sands oil as specially harmful to the environment, welcomed the result."We are pleased to see that many EU countries are opposed to this discriminatory measure," said Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.Canada...Read Full Story