Mammals munching on dinosaurs in China, Greenland’s melted previous, coral disaster in Florida, and way more on this month’s Fast Hits
AUSTRALIA
Australia is the primary nation to legalize psilocybin and MDMA for the therapy of melancholy and post-traumatic stress dysfunction. As scientific trials for these and different psychedelics achieve momentum worldwide, Australia might be a mannequin for governments contemplating regulation of those substances as medicines.
CHINA
A 125-million-year-old fossil of a badgerlike animal biting a beaked dinosaur was unearthed in northeastern China. Most paleontologists thought mammals solely scavenged dinosaur stays, however the discover suggests early mammals hunted stay dinosaurs a number of occasions their dimension.
GREENLAND
A mile-thick ice sheet in Greenland melted during a period of moderate warming 416,000 years in the past, sediments present. This overturns long-held beliefs that the island remained an icy fortress for the previous 2.5 million years, revealing its vulnerability to immediately’s human-induced local weather change.
KENYA
Development has begun on a 35-megawatt geothermal power project in Menengai, Kenya, the highest geothermal-energy-producing nation in Africa. Geothermal vegetation present 47 % of Kenya’s vitality, and manufacturing is anticipated to develop as droughts scale back hydropower sources.
LAOS
Human cranium and shinbone fossils found in a Laos cave counsel fashionable people arrived in mainland Southeast Asia as much as 36,000 years sooner than thought. This discovery challenges hypotheses that people quickly unfold from Africa via Asia 80,000 years in the past.
U.S.
Ocean temperatures off Florida spiked to a record 100 degrees Fahrenheit, inflicting the worst coral-bleaching occasion within the state’s historical past. Conservationists say some reefs face “100% coral mortality,” that means the reefs will not recuperate with out energetic, ongoing restoration work.
This text was initially revealed with the title “Fast Hits” in Scientific American 329, 3, 17 (October 2023)
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1023-17b
