A Land Without Google

With no end in sight to the stand-off between Google and the Chinese government, Nature’s news team has surveyed scientists in China to find out how much they rely on Google – and what the consequences would be if they lost access to the search engine and its related products.

More than three-quarters of the scientists said they use Google as the primary search engine for their research. Over 80% use the search engine to find academic papers; close to 60% use it to get information about scientific discoveries or other scientists’ research programmes; and more than half use the literature search Google Scholar.

Access the full survey results and read the Special Report online.