Kate Sellar from the American Chemical Society's Helium blog writes (1,2)

Mark your calenders!

Join us in the presentation area of ACS Island as sci-fi author, microbiology professor and ACS Resident Scientist Joan L. Slonczewski (Andra Renard in SL), discusses concepts of science and hard-core science fiction. Joan is the author of several science fiction novels including A Door Into Ocean. One of her short stories, Microbe, can be accessed for free online.

Prior to Joan’s talk, I will be on Second Nature to hear Prof. Mark Brake and Rev. Neil Hook of Glamorgan University give their talk, How Science Drive Fiction and Fiction Drives Science. This talk is taking place one hour before at 9 am SLT. See Joanna Scott’s blog for more details.

There exists a group of scientists and people interested in science who transit seamlessly from meetings in the real world to those in virtual worlds.

What makes this a clear signal is that, although still only a very small proportion of scientists are involved, the groups have reached critical numbers to routinely support meetings such as these.(3) The purpose of these meetings is to share information about science topics, not demonstrate the capabilities of Second Life.

Just like with the world wide web, early adopters explored Second Life for the novelty. The next wave of people followed when there was usable content. I think that for the purposes of many types of meetings and poster sessions, Second Life is currently among the better tools, compared with telephone conference calls or chat rooms. The "avatar effect" of personalizing virtual interactions is real for many people.

There are still obstacles to the widespread adoption of the technology. Computers with inadequate video cards still are a main cause of a poor first experience with Second Life. However, most standard laptops purchased in the past 2 years are adequate.