ABSTRACT
Increasingly effi cient press departments of research institutions provide their own newsworthy items, and the same science stories appear all over the Italian press as if ‘news’ in science were only the end product, often perishable, of a particular research. Editors love it, and ask us to write second-hand stories in the local idiom. If this weren’t frustrating enough, there are many news items-in my view-that I can’t write about. Am I the only one?
