In life sciences, the last author is almost always the person whose grants paid for most of the research.  Usually, they also helped supervise the research, but the grant aspect is more important.<p>For example: Mike Synder, a brilliant biologist, &#x27;supervises&#x27;  36 postdocs,  13 research assistants,  11 research scientists, 9 visiting scientists, and 8 graduate students (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;snyderlab.stanford.edu&#x2F;members3.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;snyderlab.stanford.edu&#x2F;members3.html</a> - thanks to Lior Pacter for noticing it).<p>In 2014, he had 42 published papers.  How much scientific input do you think he had on each one?