Final answer:
The population of Asia in scientific notation is 4.561 x 10^9, and the population of North America in scientific notation is 5.79 x 10^8.
Step-by-step explanation:
To express the population of Asia and North America in scientific notation, we need to follow the convention that scientific notation is a way of writing numbers that are too big or too small to be conveniently written in decimal form. In scientific notation, a number is written as the product of a number between 1 and 10 and a power of 10.
a) To express 4.561 billion in scientific notation, we have:
4,561,000,000 = 4.561 × 10^9
b) Similarly, to express 579 million in scientific notation, we proceed with:
579,000,000 = 5.79 × 10^8
Both notations reflect the large number of individuals comprising the populations of these continents and make the numbers easier to work with, especially in scientific and mathematical contexts.