Contrary to all of those old science-fiction films, laboratory research isnt done by haphazardly mixing chemicals together and seeing what happens. Detailed protocols guide every experiment, protocols that serve as a kind of recipe for researchers. Until recently, that meant that research scientists often found themselves arm-deep in a library of notebooks to guide them.

Andrea Holme, a , has dispensed with those notebooks, turning instead to . She can enter her protocols at the services website, then tote her iPad into the lab, open up the LabGuru app, and get to work. The app not only guides her experiments, it lets her record results, and syncs the data back to the web application so she can later analyze information at her computer.

Its so much more efficient, Holme says. Everything is there. Im not always the most organized person, but this makes you organized by default because youre putting everything in its proper place.

The iPad can also guide scientists to locations where research must be done. Ben Horton, an , is researching sea-level changes. He uses the ( Macworld rated 3 out of 5 mice ) to find locations that need examination, and to begin to compare changes wrought by climate change in North Carolinas Outer Banks.