My avatar was then deposited at a place in Second Life called Orientation Island. As I walked my avatar into a geodesic information dome, I happened to notice the "Fly" button. Intrigued, I wasted no time pressing it—and I shot up into the air, hitting the ceiling of the information dome like a clumsy goth-bird. It was around this time that Horace Moody, the avatar of a real-life chemist at Drexel University named Jean-Claude Bradley, came to the rescue and offered to teleport me to Drexel Island. Horace has been experimenting with Second Life as a way to teach undergraduate organic chemistry, a topic he says can definitely benefit from 3-D visualization. Several of his students have met on Drexel Island to challenge each other's organic know-how by touching an obelisk, which then flashes a sequence of quiz questions on Newman projections and Lewis dot structures.
I think that there are some terrific opportunities in Second Life for people with an interest in chemistry at all levels to explore and contribute. (see here for a recent example on molecular docking)
It is certainly a good way to meet curious and smart people.
