News by Subject Policy & Ethics

This research letter documents bone cancer in a 240-million-year-old stem-turtle from the Triassic period, helping to provide more data about the history of cancer in tetrapod evolution. This is a case study about a highly malignant bone tumor on the femur of a shell-less stem-turtle.

An analysis of the 15 highest ranked social sciences and public health universities in the US, UK, and Canada show that clear gender and ethnic disparities remain at the most senior academic positions, despite numerous diversity policies and action plans in place at these universities.

Almost three quarters (70 percent) of biomedical research papers do not report outcomes for men and women, according to a new analysis of over 11.5 million medical research papers published between 1980 and 2016. Additionally, female authors were more likely to report on sex-differences, highlighting that diversity in the workforce -- as well as the research population -- is essential to produce the most rigorous and effective research.

Our actions are guided by moral values. However, monetary incentives can get in the way of our good intentions. Neuroeconomists at the University of Zurich have now investigated in which area of the brain conflicts between moral and material motives are resolved. Their findings reveal that our actions are more social when these deliberations are inhibited.

The grandchildren of adolescent mothers have lower school readiness scores than their peers, according to a study published Feb. 6, 2019, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Elizabeth Wall-Wieler of Stanford University, USA, and colleagues at the University of Manitoba.

At least 200 species of large animals are decreasing in number and more than 150 are under threat of extinction, according to new research that suggests humans' meat consumption habits are primarily to blame.