Lab relations sour as 'missing disk' charges are proved false

摘要

Two classified computer disks that allegedly vanished last summer at the Los Alamos nuclear-weapons laboratory in New Mexico never existed, according to an investigation by the government agency that oversees the lab. The security lapse, together with an unrelated accident, led to a three-month shutdown of the laboratory last summer, with director Peter Nanos accusing scientists of operating in a "cowboy culture" (see Nature 430, 387; 2004). The conclusion that the disks never existed has infuriated many of the lab's researchers "The talk in the halls is mutinous," says Doug Roberts, a computer scientist at the laboratory. "I've been at the lab for 20 years and morale has never been this bad before."