Using 20 years of satellite-derived data on wildfire severity and smoke particulate matter from California, Iván Higuera-Mendieta and Marshall Burke conclude that low-severity fires – a proxy for prescribed burns – can significantly reduce the probability of very high severity wildfires for a decade. The smoke particulate pollution produced by these less severe fires is outweighed by the reductions in future smoke from wildfires as a result. The researchers’ modeling suggests that sustained treatment of 500,000 acres annually in California with prescribed burns would reduce cumulative harmful smoke pollution by about 10% over a decade. The findings by Higuera-Mendieta and Burke fill an important data gap about potential air quality tradeoffs associated with prescribed burns. The effects measured in the study are most impactful in the state’s conifer forests, the researchers found. A policy that applies prescribed burning for up to 1 million acres/year in California conifer forests would yield cumulative benefits in terms of smoke reduction that exceed the costs of the added smoke from the initial prescribed burning “in as early as two years, with benefits exceeding costs by at least three-fold a decade after project initiation,” the authors write.

A new study finds that employer points systems, which penalize workers for absences regardless of the reason, are strongly associated with presenteeism, the practice of showing up to work while sick, and that these systems undermine the public health benefits of paid sick leave laws even in jurisdictions where such protections are on the books.

How can universities and colleges make the process of granting promotions and tenure to faculty members fairer, more equitable, and more transparent? The Center for Excellence in Faculty Advancement presents a framework that all institutions can follow.

From insects to great apes, by way of birds and fish, animals communicate through an extraordinary variety of sounds. Whilst the pitch or timbre of their vocalisations matters, rhythm may play a more fundamental role. Scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the NCCR Evolving Language, the reConnect Institute and the Institut Pasteur analysed more than 2,000 sound recordings produced by 98 animal species. All of them vocalise at a strikingly similar rate — roughly two to three acoustic events per second — regardless of their size, habitat, species or social complexity. This constraint is likely linked to the brain’s capacity to process auditory stimuli, and human language is no exception. The findings are published in PLOS Biology.

Adolescents who spend at least two hours a day on social media are more likely to experience depressive symptoms and poorer wellbeing, with the strongest effects in early adolescence, according to new research.

An international study led by the University de Navarra, with the participation of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), has discovered that people exhibit a slight but consistent tendency to move toward the left when walking. The research, carried out in collaboration with researchers from Waseda University and the University of Tokyo (Japan), as well as Shanghai University (China), and published in Nature Communications, shows that this individual inclination influences how crowds spontaneously organize themselves and could help improve models used to manage pedestrian flows in crowded spaces.

Independent directors may be far more effective at controlling executive pay than critics claim, according to new research from the University of Surrey. Researchers found that companies with more independent board members move faster to correct risky CEO compensation structures.