Is it any wonder that the media love to dramatize science news with the horse-race metaphor? Not when they get fed (from the horse’s mouth) like these quotes from a single breathless University of Innsbruck release:

“…thus narrowly winning an international competition between many first-rate scientific groups.”
“…have won a tightly contested race between scientists…”
“…thus winning a tight international race…”
(for earlier work)”…the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded…”
“…were able to enter this international race…”

[Source: EurekAlert]

I’ll omit what the race was about (hint: Bose-Einstein condensate of an alkaline-earth element). After all, in the wider world (beyond the labs), who gives a flying frigate about one group of scientists nosing out another group of scientists? Oh, wait. That’s right; we’re being conditioned not to care about the content of news or research. We’re supposed to get hooked on the manufactured drama.