October 1, 2009 (Vol. 29, No. 17)
URL:
http://vadlo.com
Rating:
Strong Points: Specific organization of links
Weak Points: Limited by current index of sites
Summary:
It’s one of the pitfalls of the Internet—search for PCR in your favorite search engine, and you might just as well find information on purple-colored rockets as on polymerase chain reaction. Enter Vadlo (named for a fig tree), a biology-oriented search engine created by two biologists. Website owners can submit their sites for inclusion to the index, which contains only sites that fall within one of five categories: protocols, online tools, powerpoints, databases, and software. You can spend hours surfing through sites you didn’t know you were interested in finding, thanks to the random search feature—whenever you click to one of the categories, a search term is automatically entered and the results displayed. Yet, this site is also the home to a more whimsical scientific gem—its Life in Research cartoon series. (Yes, we all need some humor to combat negative results and failed experiments.)
