Correspondence

摘要

Rescuing endangered primary data is important (Nature 468, 17; 2010). Even more crucial is to archive it at the time it is generated. This lesson has been learned by the radiobiology community, who took on that challenge 25 years ago. The past 60 years have seen many large-scale studies of radiation effects on animals. The scale, cost (estimated at US$2 billion today) and ethical aspects of these experiments make them unlikely to be repeated. However, the data could usefully be reanalysed in the light of new paradigms in radiobiology.