Um, folks, this is a non-peer reviewed paper written by some Princeton students. It's not, contrary to what at least three news organizations suggested, the considered opinion of the faculty of "Princeton's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering."

Now, the paper's conclusions may or may not be correct; I'm expressing no opinion here. My point is really about standards of journalism -- would it really kill reporters to include the word "student" somewhere in the text of an article trumpeting a paper written by students?

Vocativ (which I generally like, BTW) did this as well with this amazingly declarative headline yesterday: "Facebook Will Lose 80% of Its User Base by 2017" No question mark! Not even attribution. I noted this on Twitter and their reporter replied by saying: "So?" https://twitter.com/declanm/status/425699497092460545

For those of you who may not have been online in the early 1990s, Time magazine did this to CMU undergrad Marty Rimm's paper in its "Cyberporn" cover story. A U.S. senator subsequently waved it around on the floor of the Senate to justify an Internet censorship law: http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/www/rim...

That was the good Sen. Chuck Grassley, in June 1995: "Mr. President, Georgetown University Law School has released a remarkable study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. This study raises important questions about the availability and the nature of cyberporn."

The Communications Decency Act became law some six months later.