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In a very short amount of time the human population exploded and is still growing very fast. Will this lead to the end of our civilization?

The threat of antibiotic resistance has become so dire that the United Nations General Assembly is holding a meeting to discuss it this month in New York City. Although WHO has been sounding the alarm on antibiotic resistance for years, this month's high-level U.N. meeting represents only the fourth time in the international body's history that its General Assembly-a global deliberative body that primarily grapples with issues like war and economics-has held a meeting to tackle a health topic.

Ah, spring. Grass growing, flowers blooming, trees budding. For those with allergies, though, this explosion of new life probably inspires more dread than joy. So what's behind this annual onslaught of mucus? Eleanor Nelsen explains what happens when your immune system goes rogue.

Before civilization began to impact the human life cycle approximately 10,000 years ago, human beings had high birth and death rates. Today the world is in the midst of a demographic transition - a transition to low birth and death rates - as the ability to control both disease and reproduction increases. Along the way, between these extremes, populations go through an intermediate period of continued high birth rates, combined with low death rates, resulting in a population explosion.

"Some of the most exciting things that we've seen from looking at gene expression in space is that we really see an explosion, like fireworks taking off, as soon as the human body gets into space," Twins Study principal investigator Chris Mason said in a statement.