Unveiling $\nu$ secrets with cosmological data: neutrino masses and mass
  hierarchy
  Using some of the latest cosmological datasets publicly available, we derive
the strongest bounds in the literature on the sum of the three active neutrino
masses, $M_\nu$, within the assumption of a background flat $\Lambda$CDM
cosmology. In the most conservative scheme, combining Planck cosmic microwave
background (CMB) temperature anisotropies and baryon acoustic oscillations
(BAO) data, as well as the up-to-date constraint on the optical depth to
reionization ($\tau$), the tightest $95\%$ confidence level (C.L.) upper bound
we find is $M_\nu<0.151$~eV. The addition of Planck high-$\ell$ polarization
data, which however might still be contaminated by systematics, further
tightens the bound to $M_\nu<0.118$~eV. A proper model comparison treatment
shows that the two aforementioned combinations disfavor the IH at $\sim
64\%$~C.L. and $\sim 71\%$~C.L. respectively. In addition, we compare the
constraining power of measurements of the full-shape galaxy power spectrum
versus the BAO signature, from the BOSS survey. Even though the latest BOSS
full shape measurements cover a larger volume and benefit from smaller error
bars compared to previous similar measurements, the analysis method commonly
adopted results in their constraining power still being less powerful than that
of the extracted BAO signal. Our work uses only cosmological data; imposing the
constraint $M_\nu>0.06\,{\rm eV}$ from oscillations data would raise the quoted
upper bounds by ${\cal O}(0.1\sigma)$ and would not affect our conclusions.
