Researchers have discovered that Sahara desert, the largest sub-tropical desert after Antarctica and the Arctic, is may be twice as old as they previously thought.

According to researchers, the process of changing the land into desert would have started about seven million years ago.

Ebola outbreak is spreading faster than the control strategies adopted by the affected countries, said WHO Chief Margaret Chan. In Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, 3,500 confirmed or probable cases have been reported.

According to a recent study, a species of aquarium fish has been found to have a surprisingly long memory as it can recall the location of a tasty morsel of food even after 12 days of encountering it. The extended memory may provide the fish an evolutionary edge at the time of scarcity of food, according to the researchers.

A recent study in Africa has revealed that zebras hold the record of the longest known terrestrial cross-country migration in Africa. Nearly 500km are covered by large number of zebras in a round trip from Chobe river in Namibia to Botswana's Nxai Pan National park, said researchers.

As per a latest study, a meteorite that was found last year in Sahara Desert is probably the first known piece of ancient Martian crust.

The Mars meteorite is named as NWA 7533 and is 4.4 billion years old. NWA stands for northwest Africa, where the rock was discovered.

Female genital mutilation or FGM is a burning topic as several people and groups support ending this practice. In Egypt about 91 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone female genital mutilation.

The procedure has been experienced by over 125 million women and girls living in Africa and the Middle East and over the next 10 years 30 million girls are at risk.

IFC declared a contract with Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank (OeEB), the Development Bank of Austria to hike up the sustainable energy investment in Sub-Saharan Africa initiating with the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda.

In a Saturday post on his Google+ account, Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said - in what can be seen as a somewhat far-fetched vision - that the entire world will be on the Internet by the year 2020.

Noting that for every person who is online in the present times, there are two who are not, Schmidt said that, by the end of this decade, "Everyone on Earth will be connected."