April 1, 2016 (Vol. 36, No. 7)
Rating:
Strong Points: Easy to use, fast display times
Weak Points: Requires internet connection, some occasional glitches with axes
Platform:
iPad
Cost:
$0.99
Summary:
A handy resource to track trends in science, the PubMed Chronology app is also just fun to use. The app provides a way for users to easily visualize the number of PubMed entries containing particular search terms over time. Users are prompted to enter two search terms and a range of dates. (Exact phrases are used for the search, comparable to using quotation marks around your query.) Very quickly, the results are displayed in graphical form, depicting the number of publications (or “hits”) in PubMed as a function of year for each of the terms. Users can also visualize the correlation between the terms in a second graph. One can search both by topics and authors. The graphs can be easily saved to the device’s camera roll.
