So if your last author is female the quality of the science is statistically better. I don’t know exactly what to make of this. We also have to understand a bit about the role of last authorship. In life sciences this is usually the corresponding author. I would not be surprised (given the study looks over a 40 year period) that what we are seeing is that women just produce more carful better science, but are being restricted from first authorship positions because of bias. ... (more)