How Cell Phones Can Help Paleontologists

A lot of cell phone and gadget blogs tend to focus on the newest gadgets and announcements from major carriers. Here at Cell Phones.org and the Mobile Maven, we like to focus more on the People using the cell phones then the phone itself. To that end, we’re starting a series. This “How To” Series will address different professions and hopefully show how cell phones can have a positive impact on your work and productivity.

We’ve chosen to start the series off with … Paleontologists! Why Paleontologists, you ask? Well for one, we love dinosaurs, fossils and everything prehistoric. We also feel that it’s one of the most under appreciated, underpaid disciplines in the academic world and we decided to try and give some glory to the great folks who work in the profession!

Without further ado, here are a few ways you can be a better paleontologist with a cell phone.

• Backup GPS – If your primary GPS goes down (or you don’t have a GPS in the first place) you can use the GPS on the iPhone, Android and many other cell phones to provide a fairly accurate location. If you’re short on equipment but not on volunteers, you can have them use cell phone based GPS to maximize their usefullness.
• Flashlight – Use one of the myriad iPhone and Android apps to turn your cell into a backup flashlight.
• Photographing – Did your camera break? While cell phone cameras are no match for proper photography, they’re great in a pinch. Better yet, if you have a volunteer who has a question but you don’t have the time, they can snap a quick pick and text it to you for you to look at later. It’s also great for areas where you may not have planned to research (Such as vacation, for example) but still want to take a picture to research a sudden new find later on. Also, it’s great for taking pictures of dinosaurs..
• Note taking – while pen and paper are great, it can often help to record your notes both vocally and digitally so you can easily send a copy. We recommend using a cell phone with a separate digital memory card so that in case something happens to the phone you still have your data.
• eMail – So you can check if you accepted to that Ph.D program or if your paper was accepted, anytime, anywhere.
• Dinosaur Shoot Em Up – While this is not strictly paleontology related, we do think it’s a lot of fun to play an armed to the teeth dinosaur in an airplane sent back in time to rescue eggs while you’re on the go.

Do you have other uses for your cell phone in your field work? Let us know! Feel free to use this post to get your employer/sponsor/etc to add an iPhone/Android to the budget. Happy Hunting!