If anyone has the stamina to read them all, it would be Pauling, now 90. He is an avid reader, logging a minimum of five hours a day. Of course, Pauling's work goes way beyond the vitamin he claimed could cure the common cold and serve as a treatment for cancer. The two-time Nobel Prize winner's interests cover the whole spectrum of science, which means he is faced with absorbing an overwhelming amount of information. Despite his penchant for reading, Pauling says, "It's impossible to keep up with discoveries in science, even in a limited field such as vitamin C."
Scientists everywhere confront the dilemma of information overload. With the explosion of new findings in science in the last decade, publication has accelerated and the number of journals and science-oriented publications has increased. Keeping up with even a highly specialized field has become akin to running the Boston marathon.
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