Nature grows bigger in virtual world

The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has increased its presence in the virtual reality world of Second Life (SL) launching the Elucian Islands, its new official area.
Speaking at the launch event, Timo Hannay, Publishing director of Nature.com said the reason for developing the chain of islands was complimentary to Nature’s strategy, “to help scientists communicate more effectively among themselves as well as provide the latest scientific information.”

As well as a platform for scientists to improve collaboration and knowledge distribution, the new islands will be shared with parent company Macmillan Publishers. Hannay said “in addition to the Second Nature islands we have expanded to include a large central island dedicated to all areas of learning, not just science”

Second Nature, NPG’s original SL presence also received a redesign, and premiered the launch of a new range of films featuring Nobel prize-winners. The two films (from a series of five) comprise of discussions between the Nobel Laureates and students as they talk about the theories and models surrounding key issues in physics today, such as dark matter and dark energy, quantum computing and the Large Hadron Collider.