Nigeria's chaotic megacity Lagos on Wednesday sought to impose a one-day ban on the use of the car horn, hoping to raise awareness about damaging noise pollution and improve quality of life.

The occasional honk still rang out on the crowded streets of the country's financial capital yet drivers, public transport users and pedestrians said they noticed that things were a bit quieter.

Space enthusiasts planning a move to Mars may have to wait to relocate: conditions on the Red Planet are such that humans would likely begin dying within 68 days, a new study says.

Oxygen levels would start to deplete after about two months and scientists said new technologies are required before humans can permanently settle on Mars, according to the study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Japan's utilities say they are being swamped by green power because of rules forcing them to buy up every last watt produced from renewable sources, as new generating companies seek to cash in on premium prices.

Power firms say the grid does not have enough capacity to cope with the rocketing levels of electricity that is coming from a growing number of solar power facilities, possibly risking blackouts.

Sub-Saharan Africa's energy sector needs overhauling to help power its economic and social prosperity, the IEA said on Monday.

The International Energy Agency, unveiling its first-ever Africa Energy Outlook at a London press conference, said increasing access to modern forms of energy was critical in a region where two-thirds of the population -- or 620 million people -- currently live without electricity.

Rising global temperatures, rapidly melting arctic ice and other effects of climate change are posing immediate risks to U.S. national security and military and humanitarian operations, the Pentagon warned Monday.

In a comprehensive report billed as a roadmap for adapting to climate change, the Defense Department said it has begun to boost its "resilience" and ensure mission readiness is not compromised in the face of rising sea levels, increasing regularity of natural disasters, and food and water shortages in the developing world.

People are changing Earth so much, warming and polluting it, that many scientists are turning to a new way to describe the time we live in. They're calling it the Anthropocene — the age of humans.

Though most non-experts don't realize it, science calls the past 12,000 years the Holocene, Greek for "entirely recent." But the way humans and their industries are altering the planet, especially its climate, has caused an increasing number of scientists to use the word Anthropocene to better describe when and where we are.

A rare beaked whale washed up in Australia Tuesday, exciting researchers who know little about an animal that spends much of its time diving at depth far from shore.

The three-to-four meter (10-13 feet) long whale was found dead at Redhead Beach, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Sydney, with experts examining it and taking specimens before sending its head to the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Defense officials say a report slated for release Monday will lay out plans for the Pentagon to get a better handle on how climate change will affect the military, and determine how best to deal with the challenges.

Defense Department leaders have long warned that the evolving change in climate patterns, resulting in rising seas and increased severe weather events, will have a broad and costly impact on the Defense Department's ability to protect the nation and respond to natural and humanitarian disasters in the United States and around the world.

By 2024, more than half of summers in eastern China will be as hot as in 2013, when the region was hit by a record-busting heatwave and devastating drought, a study said Sunday.

Based on current global warming trends, the big heat will happen even if rising greenhouse gas emissions are braked over the next decade, it said.

Archaeologists at the Petrified Forest National Park in the southwestern U.S. have discovered an ancient village that is unique for its size.

Park officials say 50 to 70 pit houses are organized in rings on about 66 acres (26 hectares). One village found last summer spanned about 14 acres (6 hectares).