Climate change threatens humanity today — and new research suggests something similar happened nearly 900,000 years ago. At that time, early humans were on the brink of extinction, with their…

Very few people live beyond the age of 100. If everyone suddenly stopped having children, it’s likely that in about a century there would be no one left on Earth.…

In March 2025, the global population reached 8.21 billion. But Finnish researchers say Earth may be more densely populated than we thought. A new study finds that statistics significantly underestimate…

The world’s population is doing something once thought nearly impossible: it’s starting to fluctuate. Projections suggest global population may peak much sooner than expected—potentially above 10 billion in the 2060s—then…

The UN’s World Population Prospects 2024 says the global population will grow by more than two billion over the next decade, but that fast growth may stop by the mid-2080s.…

A new study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington lays out a stark picture of falling global fertility. Fertility rate refers to…

Imagine shouting, ‘Hey, Sato!’ and every Japanese person turns to look. Statistical modeling suggests that, under current laws, every resident of Japan could end up with that surname. This is…

Just over two centuries ago, Earth’s population was about 1 billion. In the following century it rose by 600 million, and today it’s roughly 8 billion. That kind of rapid…

Currently, our planet’s population is doing something once thought nearly impossible: it’s expected to peak much sooner than many predicted, potentially topping 10 billion by the 2060s before beginning to…

Neanderthals and modern humans shared a long, fascinating history. The presence of Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of living people shows those populations were closely connected. Some scientists even argue…