Top Twelve Tools Scientists & Academics Can Leverage for Better Science
1. Skype (and/or Google Chat)
2. Google Reader (to stay atop updates in their field & related interests)
3. Social bookmarking Delicious for search & storage
4. Social Following for Academics. For instance http://www.academia.edu/
5. Custom search engines via Google
6. Google Scholar
7. Google Advanced Search (ie .edu, .org, .gov or document type narrowing functions)
8. Project collaboration tools (pick your flavor)–assuming they are collaborating with other scientists in a high-level way.
9. Perhaps other tools for crowd sourcing data (ie via mobile technology)
10. Google reader & RSS feeds of peers as well as key publications in the field.
11. Various scientific research databases.
12. http://Quora.com (this is empirically proven by this thread)
Update:
• I would add this tool, which I believe is ResearchGate (researchgate.net)
• YouTube to the extent they can flip the classroom & save productive class time
