Neutrinos have been in the news again — and not just because of the debate over last year's OPERA experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, the results of which gave rise to the mistaken claim that the particles could travel faster than light (Nature 484, 287–288; 2012). In March, multinational experiments at the Daya Bay reactor in Guangdong Province, China, tracked down a fundamental parameter that describes neutrino oscillations, and Fermilab's MINERvA experiment near Chicago, Illinois, transmitted a message using neutrino communication for the first time.

In the wake of these exciting findings, neutrino physicists should not be too tempted to release new data ahead of thorough analysis and ratification, which could harm science. Neutrinos are elusive and neutrino experiments are extraordinarily complex, so physicists should remain sceptical and ensure that results are solid before they are proclaimed to the tax-paying public.