Science’s Big Data Problem

Modern science seems to have data coming out of its ears. From genome sequencing machines capable of reading a human’s chromosomal DNA (about 1.5 gigabytes of data) in half an hour to particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (which generates close to 100 terabytes of data a day), researchers are awash with information. Yet in this age of big data, science has a big problem: it is not doing nearly enough to encourage and enable the sharing, analysis and interpretation of the vast swatches of data that researchers are collecting.


Timo Hannay. Wired.