Hands-on power: the next-best thing since paper, personal digital assistants are transforming science, medicine, and education.(Lab Consumer)

In the 1830s, Charles Darwin used a pen and paper to document Finches and other fauna and flora in the Galapagos Islands. For the next century and a half, most scientists relied on the same tools to take notes or collect data. Today, Dave Anderson, associate professor of biology at Wake Forest University, Follows in Darwin's Footsteps--walking the Galapagos coast, searching for albatrosses and Nazca boobies. Instead of using a pen, however, he collects data with a personal digital assistant (PDA). He's not the only one: Handheld devices now appear in science classrooms, experimental laboratories, and medical settings. These minicomputers have the potential to push science ahead at a Faster pace and with more accurate results.

For the most part, anything that a scientist does on paper can be done on a handheld device. Just an ordinary Palm or Pocket PC, along with some specialized software, can perform scientific Feats, as well as typical handheld tasks. Researchers can program a PDA or electronic tablet with a form for collecting data. Several manufacturers also make add-on probes enabling handheld devices to collect data such as temperature or location using a global positioning system. Perhaps most importantly, data flow easily from a handheld device to a personal computer for storage or analysis. …