We have some kind of weird hero-worship of scientists where the general public just believes what they say, even if they never even attempt to replicate their results. They do an experiment (which may or may not be scientifically sound to start with) and then publish results, and the public eats it up.

And then people have the nerve to say, "Last week chocolate was bad for me, now it's good? Make up you mind!" No, stop listening to un-replicated studies! Jeez.

Good point about the public involvement. The public and the news systems are part of the problem.

I've lost count of how many 'battery breakthrough' articles I've come across, but they seem to pass the newsworthy test.

Wasn't the problem with battery breakthroughs that they don't commercialise well, rather than that the science doesn't repeat?