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The Big Apple has gotten even bigger. The number of New Yorkers grew by 70,000 in the 15 month period from April 2010 – July 1, 2011, bumping the city’s population to more than 8.2 million people, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Wednesday.

This week's Please Explains is the second in our series on how to save the world—ways to approach complex global problems such as climate change, food supply, garbage disposal, the global water supply, and violence. Today we're looking at the population explosion—there are now 7 billion people on the planet. We're joined by Hania Zlotnik, director of the population Division at the Department of Economics and Social Affairs at the United Nations, and Dr.Joel E. Cohen, mathematical biologist and the head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, and author of How Many People Can the Earth Support?

Joel E. Cohen, mathematical biologist, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, and author of How Many People Can the Earth Support?, talks about the implications of passing the 7-billion world population milestone. 

Today the world's population reached seven billion. Duncan Kennedy, reporting for the BBC, spent the first few hours with that seven billionth baby — or one of the newborns that could lay claim to the title — Alice, in Australia. He spoke with her new parents about the advent of a new life in their world, and about what it's like to be the parents of a child on a 7 billion person planet.