THE DATA DUMP

Scientists are wasting much of the data they are creating. Worldwide computing capacity grew at 58 percent every year from 1986 to 2007, and people sent almost two quadrillion megabytes of data to one another, according to a study published on Thursday in Science. But scientists are losing a lot of the data, say researchers in a wide range of disciplines.


In 10 new articles, also published in Science, researchers in fields as diverse as paleontology and neuroscience say the lack of data libraries, insufficient support from federal research agencies, and the lack of academic credit for sharing data sets have created a situation in which money is wasted and information that could reveal better cancer treatments or the causes of climate change goes by the wayside. TheChronicle