Automated synonym replacement is the current cutting edge in plagiarism, or more generously, avoiding automated plagiarism detection. There was recently a large

Automated synonym replacement is the current cutting edge in plagiarism, or more generously, avoiding automated plagiarism detection. There was recently a large scandal in which some large number of scientific papers were traced to a ghostwriting house via their automated synonyms. So my guess would be that the science news "author" is rewording things to avoid stepping on another author's copyright.