* Astronomy

Mammoth dung has proven to be a source of prehistoric information, helping scientists unravel the mystery of what caused the great mammals to die out.
An examination of a fungus that is found in the ancient dung and preserved in lake sediments has helped build a picture of what happened to the beasts.
The study sheds light on the ecological consequences of the extinction and the role that humans may have played in it.
Researchers describe this development in the journal Science.

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A mammoth sensation in Serbia - no matter how old
Wading through the swamps that hundreds of thousands of years later would become eastern Serbia, Vika became stuck, never managing to pull herself free, and eventually died. Now Vika, a mammoth whose skeleton was found perfectly preserved in a crouched position, has been hailed as a "sensational" find despite disputes over her age, species and even sex.

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Title: The Padul mammoth finds - On the southernmost record of Mammuthus primigenius in Europe and its southern spread during the Late Pleistocene
Authors: Diego J. Alvarez-Lao, Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, Nuria García and Dick Mol

Fossil remains of at least four mature to old mature male individuals of Mammuthus primigenius have been discovered in a peat-bog of Late Pleistocene age, situated near to the town of Padul in the Granada Basin (Southern Spain). Radiocarbon dates indicate the presence of woolly mammoth in Southern Spain between 35.8 and 25.7 ka BP (40.4-30.6 cal ka BP), a time span corresponding with the later part of MIS 3. The Padul mammoths did not differ morphometrically from individuals of contemporaneous populations of other European regions, but represent the westernmost portion of an extended and continuous Holarctic belt of mammoth distribution. The area immediately northwest of the Pyrenees including a slender belt of dry land along the coast of the Bay of Biscay is considered the immigration route of M. primigenius into the Iberian Peninsula. The southernmost extent of Iberian woolly mammoths correlates with periods of particularly dry and cold climatic conditions, where they are documented in terrestrial and marine sediment sequences of the region.
The southern expansion of M. primigenius during the Late Pleistocene extended to similar latitudes in Europe, Asia and North America, paralleling the distribution of suitable steppe- or tundra-steppe like environments. The woolly mammoth's southernmost advances were limited by the vegetational character of corresponding landscapes, by the configuration of marine shore lines and high mountain chains and by the extension of semideserts and deserts. Phases of mammoth dispersal into the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas during the later part of MIS 3 and early MIS 2 can be roughly correlated with the southern distribution of the species in the eastern Palaearctic. Along the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean, the topography and glaciation of the Rocky Mountains range prevented a similar dispersal of woolly mammoths into western North America. The expansion of Late Pleistocene M. primigenius within the inner-continental areas of Eurasia and North America differs chronologically from those at the continental margins.

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A well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth that is believed to be about one million years old has been unearthed in eastern Serbia, archaeologists said Thursday.
The discovery was made during excavation two days ago at an open-pit coal mine near Kostolac power plant, said Miomir Korac, from Serbia's Archaeology Institute.
The skeleton was found 89 feet below ground, he said. The mammoth was more than 13 feet high, 16 feet long and weighed more than 10 tons.

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