Of late, your editor has noticed several press releases concerning scientific findings that don’t read in a scientific way. You know that objective kind of writing: the use of words and phrases such as “tend to,” “suggesting,” or “of potential interest,” and the ever-popular, “further study is required.” An announcement from the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and Department of Energy Science at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea tells a hopeful story of a new discovery mimicking nature and “displaying electrical properties about five orders of magnitude higher than similar lithium batteries, and even claiming, “stunning test results.” These sound more like PR than simple declarative statements. Before running to your broker to see if an IPO is imminent, let’s determine what those “similar lithium batteries” are and what electrical properties are being compared. The abstract for the team’s paper in the May 6 edition of Advanced Energy Materials is more circumspect. “Inspired by natural …