We’ve all been warned that what we put on the internet never goes away. But just because something is on the World Wide Web doesn’t necessarily mean that it will stay put. The term, “link rot” refers to hyperlinks that no longer connect to their intended pages. The intended resource may have been archived, deleted, or retracted; and the link previously pointing there is now useless. Users may be faced with a ‘404’ error, a blank page, or something completely different than they were seeking.

With the variety of information on the internet, this can mean loosing track of your favorite kitten picture or the citations given supporting Supreme Court decisions; it’s a bigger problem than many people realize. According to a study published in PLoS One, an estimated one in five academic articles published between 1997 and 2012 suffer from link rot.

Wikimedia Foundation [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

While the humble fruit fly may be a summer-time nuisance for many of us, they have been helping the scientific community study the building blocks of life for over a century due to their availability, small size and quick reproduction. The Manchester Fly Facility at Manchester University has a very informative website about the history and current uses of these little guys in science research.

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