The older the raw data, the harder it is to get your hands on. That’s the perhaps-not-unsurprising message of a new study by a group of ecologists and evolutionary biologists, who set out to track down the authors of 516 papers published between 2 and 22 years ago. In 167 papers published before 2000, 38% had no working author e-mail; for the 349 papers published after 2000, the number dropped to 19%. For papers where an e-mail apparently got through, Vines and his colleagues received a response about half the time, regardless of when the paper was published. (1)

Things exist only so as to be forgotten. Events occur only so as to be let go into oblivion. We are mode defined by the things we have forgotten than the ones we remember. Close your eyes. It will all come back to you…