a funny article I found which well sums up 'science writing' 

Many scientists see writing as a means to an end, the packing peanuts necessary to cushion the data they want to disperse to the world. They hate crafting sentences as much as they hate, say, metaphors about packing peanuts.

Most journals use the past tense. To add flair to your writing, try writing your entire article in the Third Conditional Progressive Interrogative tense. Instead of, “We did this experiment,” you’d write, “Would we have been doing this experiment?” This may seem more convoluted than simple writing, but your article probably won’t be any less comprehensible than most other scientific journal articles.

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2012_03_23/caredit.a1200033