Google Scholar leads to me to new science articles
I just discovered Google Scholar as a good search tool. I often find that search engines like GEOREF and Web of Science don’t include some journals that contain frequent articles in the field of vertebrate paleontology. GEOREF focuses on geology and Web of Science focuses on all aspects of science, certain journals don’t make it into their databases. Google Scholar seems to link searches directly with the articles themselves, and offer a competitive search tool. It even has the number of times the article was cited by other articles, which is familiar to uses of Web of Science. After a few searches, realized I had neglected some recent articles published earlier this year. First is an article published in the April issue of the Journal of Morphology by Maureen Kearney, Jessica Anderson Maisano, and Timothy Rowe on the cranial anatomy of a fossil amphisbaenian from the Brule Formation. What I found so remarkable about the article was the ability of using high-resolution X-ray computed tomography to basically isolate various elements of the skull, and model them in the computer without having to take apart the complete skull. Even the little ear bones were successfully isolated using this approach. Truly amazing stuff!
