Research Google

It's fair to say that search engines have revolutionized how people use the internet, and in fact, much of their lives. And the 900 pound gorilla on the search engine block is, of course, Google: the only search engine whose name has entered the language as a verb. One of my colleagues said to me at a meeting, "I solve all my problems with Google now. 'Daughter annoying'? 'Common problem' comes the reply." (The name of said colleague will not be revealed on the off chance that his daughter Googles his name and hits this blog.)

I've just learned from this article in Nature that Google has put up a scientific version of its search engine called Google Scholar. It's still "beta testing," but usually these test versions work fine.

I bookmarked this page as fast as I could. This is going to be an amazingly powerful work tool. There are other science related search engines, chief among them Pub Med, but they tend to be focused on single areas of specialization (biomedical research in the case of PubMed) or run by publishers. Google Scholar will probably avoid those issues.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to wipe the drool off the corners of my mouth now. OoooOOoooooh, it even links to articles that cite the ones you're interested in....