Core spin: The Science effect in action

As I noted five years ago in writing about the Earth's core, the solid inner core has been found to rotate slightly faster than the rest of the planet--it can do this because it's surrounded by the liquid iron of the outer core. So when the same researchers who discovered that, back in 1996, publish stronger results again this week, why is it front-page science news on the wire services? Why, it's the Science magazine effect: Everything published in this prominent research journal gets expertly touted to the mainstream (read: scientifically semiliterate) press. If it wasn't in Science (or Nature), it didn't exist until this week's press release. That's one of the flaws of the "open literature," which as I've pointed out isn't really open. The real open literature is either gray or clear.