In the 21st century, it seems to be settled that quotas are a bad idea. By picking people based on a characteristic outside their ability to best do a job, it seems to be another term for discrimination. 

Some countries have done it anyway. Mexico, for example, passed quotas to create equal gender representation in government but a new social studies paper concludes that the quality of female candidates did not go down, nor did women rely on personal connections more than men to get elected.

New research reveals that the evolutionary history of glyptodonts -- huge, armored mammals that went extinct in the Americas at the end of the last ice age -- is unexpectedly brief. The work, published this week in the journal Current Biology by an international team of researchers, confirms that glyptodonts likely originated less than 35 million years ago from ancestors within lineages leading directly to one of the modern armadillo families. More surprising still, the study finds that the closest relatives of glyptodonts -- some species of which may have weighed two tons or more -- include not only the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), which can weigh up to 25 pounds, but also the four-ounce pink fairy armadillo, or pichiciego (Chlamyphorus truncatus).

The types of beneficial fungi that associate with tree roots can alter the fate of a patch of tropical forest, boosting plant diversity or, conversely, giving one tree species a distinct advantage over many others, finds a study in Ecology Letters which sought to explain a baffling phenomenon in some tropical forests: Small patches of "monodominant forest," where one species makes up more than 60 percent of the trees, form islands of low diversity in the otherwise highly diverse tropical forest growing all around them.

The new study focused on mountain forests in Panama that harbor hundreds of tree species, but which include small patches dominated by the tree species Oreomunnea mexicana.

One of the things I like the most when I do data analysis is to use "pure thought" to predict in advance the features of a probability density function of some observable quantity from the physical process I am studying. By doing that, one can try one's hand at demonstrating one's understanding of the details of the physics at play.

Passing on our genes to the next generation is the key process in evolution that happens through natural selection. So why do women suddenly stop having periods when they have at least a third of their lives left to live? It makes no sense, which is why it has been called a “Darwinian puzzle” – an aspect of biology that appears to be at odds with natural selection.

New research conducted by Plymouth University shows that young women with high emotional intelligence (EI) are more likely to use manipulative behaviours, resulting in a greater engagement in delinquency.

The research, led by Dr Alison Bacon, Lecturer in Psychology, was conducted to assess why young women with high levels of EI are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour than young men - a conclusion drawn from her 2014 paper, 'Sex differences in the relationship between sensation seeking, trait emotional intelligence and delinquent behaviour'.

Public health measures to reduce smoking would have more success if policy makers intervened to curb the vast profitability of the tobacco industry, say University researchers.

The lucrative nature of the cigarette market, dominated by a small number of large shareholder-owned companies, results in a vigorous fight against any new public health measures that may disrupt their profit-making.

The researchers from the University of Bath and University of Ottawa say governments should look to the success of past policies that have transitioned other industries towards products that are less harmful to health, such as the switch from leaded to unleaded petrol.

LIFE ON EARTH - Reconstructing the emergence and evolution of life on our planet is tightly linked to the questions as to when and to what extent Earth's atmosphere became oxygenated. New geological studies based on data from Western Greenland indicate that small levels of atmospheric oxygen developed already 3.8 billion years ago, some 0.7-0.8 billion years earlier than previously thought.

People diagnosed with depression are about twice as likely to smoke as the general population. A survey of 6811 participants from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the USA, published today in the scientific journal Addiction, found that although depressed smokers tried to quit smoking more often than other smokers, they were more likely to return to smoking within a month. This tendency seemed to be stronger for women than men.

Washington, DC - February 17, 2016 - Researchers from Maryland and New York have identified a novel herpes virus in cells taken from a bat. The work, published this week in mSphere, the American Society for Microbiology's new open access journal, could lead to better understanding of the biology of these viruses and why bats serve as hosts for a number of viruses that can potentially transfer to humans.