Scientists losing data at a rapid rate, Nature
“In their parents’ attic, in boxes in the garage, or stored on now-defunct floppy disks — these are just some of the inaccessible places in which scientists have admitted to keeping their old research data. Such practices mean that data are being lost to science at a rapid rate, a study has now found. “Most of the time, researchers said ‘it’s probably in this or that location’, such as their parents’ attic, or on a zip drive for which they haven’t seen the hardware in 15 years” …. “In theory, the data still exist, but the time and effort required by the researcher to get them to you is prohibitive.”