While it's an easy way to call attention to a story, it's often inaccurate, or at least out of context, Paige Brown writes. Brown reviews recent news stories that used the word, especially in headlines, when it wasn't supported by the underlying science and sometimes not even by the text of the story itself: "I’d propose that science journalists should rarely if ever use this language to describe a finding, short of the researcher calling it so him- or herself."
