Twing.com is a new search engine specifically for blogs and forums.

This is a great guide for selecting the best search tools.

A study of the use of areas of the brain during different activities found that it is markedly more active when carrying out an Internet search than when reading a book.

The stimulation was concentrated in the frontal, temporal, and cingulate areas, which control visual imagery, decision-making, and memory.

The areas associated with abstract thinking and empathy showed virtually no increase in stimulation.

The study's authors say it shows how our brains could evolve over the long term with the increased use of technology.

But while the internet brings benefits for the brain, they warned against its overuse, which could come at the expense of other brain functions linked to human interaction.

Do unflattering photos or embarrassing blog postings pop up when someone Googles your name? Or are you concerned about your privacy in this new digital age? With Google's excellent indexing of the Internet, the reality is that friends, family members and employers can find out more information about you than you potentially want them to, just by "Googling" your full name. Here are a few ways of getting out of this situation.

Instead of just typing in a phrase and wading through page after page of results, there are a number of ways to make your searches more efficient.

Some of these are obvious ones, that you probably know about. But others are lesser-known, and others are known but not often used. Use this guide to learn more about, or be reminded of, some of the best ways to get exactly what you're looking for, and quickly.

Opportunities for social networking abound on the Internet, but not when it comes to one standard job: using a browser and search engine to comb the web for information. That task is still typically done solo, because browser displays and search procedures have traditionally been designed for a single user.

Meredith Ringel Morris (pictured here) of Microsoft Research has created a tool that lets people at different computers work together on an online search—dividing responsibilities and pooling results.

Dozens of search engines are categorized on NoodleTools by the criteria below. Use these criteria to find the search engine that will best suit your needs.

I need help to define my topic
I need to find quality results
I need to do research in a specific discipline
The timeliness of information that I need is
I need facts
I need opinions and perspectives
I need a specific type of media
I have special search requirements

College researchers often need more than Google and Wikipedia to get the job done. To find what you're looking for, it may be necessary to tap into the invisible web, the sites that don't get indexed by broad search engines. The following resources were designed to help you do just that, offering specialized search engines, directories, and more places to find the complex and obscure.

ABC News: Twing.com is a new search engine specifically for blogs and forums.