Most Scientific Research Data From The 1990s Is Lost Forever

A new study has found that as much as 80 percent of the raw scientific data collected by researchers in the early 1990s is gone forever, mostly because no one knows where to find it.

According to a study by Timothy H. Vines, et al. titled "The Availability of Research Data Declines Rapidly with Article Age," published last week in Current Biology, most raw data from scientific papers published twenty years ago is unobtainable - either because authors have since changed their contact information and can't be reached or because the data was stored using outdated technology, like floppy disks.

A post on Smithsonian.com's Surprising Science blog explains the researchers' methodology: