Style for first introduction sentence - citation required for lurid statement?
I think there is a non negligible chance that this will make a bad first impression on the readers.

Don't get me wrong: I love it when people depart from the dry and oft boring “academic style” of writing and try to invigorate their papers: more concise writing, less use of conditional, more direct statements, use of active voice, stating one's opinion when need be, etc. But this should be done with the goal of making your paper easier to read, and not hyping it. If you start with a broad claim that has little to do with your actual conclusions, you may alienate some readers (“hey, I read the paper because the first line said that a world without gluons would be beneficial in the long term, but then it's only a boring particle physics paper!”).



To give a specific example, when I read papers dealing with physical and chemical properties of water, oftentimes the authors think it wise to start their introduction with a broad statements like:


  Water is the most abundant molecule of the human body, and the second most common molecule in the Universe. Its presence or absence has dramatic consequences for human life and civilization: droughts cause famines and floods cause death and disease. Though it has a special relationship with our everyday lives, there is still much we need to learn about it.


and then end with:


  In conclusion, we reported the most accurate measurement yet of the bending vibration frequency of heavy water, with an uncertainty of 10–9.


It annoys me.