Across the globe, light pollution is making the night sky lighter and the stars harder to see. In a paper in Science Advances, researchers reveal that 1 in 3 people worldwide are unable to see the Milky Way when they gaze at the heavens in their hometown. In addition, a whopping 83 percent of the world's population lives under light-polluted skies.

In Singapore — the country with the most light pollution — the skies never go dark, the authors write. The situation is almost the same in Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Israel and Argentina. In the United States and Europe, 99 percent of people live under light-polluted skies. The Milky Way remains hidden from 80 percent of North Americans and 60 percent of Europeans.

"Humanity has enveloped our planet in a luminous fog that prevents most of the Earth's population from having the opportunity to observe our galaxy," wrote the research team led by Fabio Falchi of the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute in Thiene, Italy.

Gene drive science not yet ready

A powerful new technology holds the promise of rapidly altering genes to make malaria-proof mosquitoes, eliminate their Zika-carrying cousins or wipe out an invasive species, but government advisers said these "gene drives" aren't ready to let loose in the wild just yet. They said more research is needed to learn to safely use gene drives and understand the ecological and social consequences of spreading genetic changes in populations of insects, animals or plants faster than nature.

News services