Reuters Science News Summary

New research reveals that prehistoric people in Eurasia and North America primarily targeted female woolly mammoths for their meat, hides, bones, and tusks.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Study shows prehistoric people targeted female mammoths

Woolly ​mammoths were a favorite hunting target for Ice Age people in ​Eurasia and North America for many reasons. A ‌single animal ​would provide a large amount of meat and fat. Its hide could be used for clothing. Its bones and tusks could be shaped into tools, weapons and art. And the largest bones could be used as ‌building material for shelters or other structures. New research shows that these prehistoric people were highly selective in the mammoths they hunted. Using genetic data from bones accumulated by people at 11 sites in Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Russia, scientists have discovered that they mainly killed female mammoths.

Chinese fossil shows internal ‌organs of prehistoric marine reptile

Scientists have discovered a fossil in China of a long-necked marine reptile from 245 million years ago that is so well ‌preserved that it reveals the animal's stomach, liver and intestines, providing an unparalleled look at reptilian internal anatomy before the age of dinosaurs. Researchers said the fossil of the Triassic Period creature Austronaga minuta was unearthed in Yunnan Province in southern China in a region that has yielded many nicely preserved fossils dating to a time of tremendous evolutionary innovation in the aftermath ⁠of Earth's worst ​mass extinction of species.

Smallpox DNA is ⁠recovered from Spanish conquest-era Chilean mummies

When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World some five centuries ago, they brought muskets, cannons, armor, horses and attack dogs as they set about colonizing ⁠the Americas. But the biggest blow they delivered came from something else entirely — smallpox and other infectious diseases that ravaged indigenous populations. Researchers now have obtained the first direct molecular evidence ​of the smallpox unwittingly carried from the Old World to the New World that wiped out untold millions of people in Mesoamerica and ⁠South America. They recovered ancient viral DNA from the mummies of two people who died during the early Spanish colonial period in an Inca community in northern Chile.

Climate change made 'fire-prone' weather conditions ⁠more likely ​in Spain and France, scientists say

Human-caused climate change made the extreme weather fuelling wildfires in southwestern France twice as likely, and made the conditions driving blazes in central Spain 20 times more likely, scientists said on Friday. Ongoing wildfires in Spain and France have forced hundreds of thousands of people ⁠to evacuate and scorched huge swathes of land.

Mammoth remains revealed in Bulgaria after Danube water levels hit record low

The remains of what is believed ⁠to be an ancient mammoth have been ⁠revealed in northern Bulgaria, after Danube River water levels receded to a record low level, the BTA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing historians. The animal's remains were found on Wednesday by a local resident of the Ryahovo village, who ‌noticed the unusual ‌find on the river bed. Villagers then alerted specialists in the Regional History Museum ​in the nearby town of Ruse.