Australia

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At a time when humans around the world were likely relying on stone axes chipped to a sharp edge, a process called knapping, early Australians were refining their edges by grinding against another stone.

Archaeologists found a fragment of an axe about the size of a thumbnail that dates from between 44,000 and 49,000 years ago, they report in the journal Australian Archaeology.

Previously, the contenders for the oldest ground-edge axe included another fragment found in Australia that dated back to about 35,000 years ago and pieces from inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago from roughly 38,000 years ago.

In the paper, the researchers explain that ground-edge axes were often repaired by first flaking off pieces along the edge and then grinding the new surface.

The chip is made of basalt, a type of igneous rock, which tells the researchers that the full axe head would have been very heavy, likely unusable without a handle.

SMMRY

Cricket legend and former Australian captain Allan Border has Parkinson’s and says it will be a miracle if he lives to 80.

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In a controversial move, Australia will become the world's first country to allow the drugs psilocybin and MDMA to be prescribed by doctors to treat psychiatric conditions including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

MDMA is widely known as the party drug ecstasy, and psilocybin is the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Nations including the United States, Canada and Israel allow individual use of these drugs on compassionate grounds or in clinical trials, but on 1 July Australia will be the first to regulate the drugs as medications, to be prescribed by approved psychiatrists.

Psychiatrists will prescribe the drugs using the TGA's Authorised Prescriber Scheme, which allows registered psychiatrists to prescribe medicines that have yet to be formally included on Australia's register of therapeutic goods.

The TGA says that doctors who prescribe MDMA and psilocybin must follow a code of conduct published by the Medical Board of Australia.

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