Hiro Sheridan has just significantly upgraded the capabilities of his molecule rezzer in Second Life. It is available on the Chemistry Corner on Drexel Island.

We had about a dozen participants at the Open Notebook Science Case Studies SciFoo Lives On session yesterday. I talked about using a free and hosted blog (Blogger), wiki (Wikispaces), referral tracker (Sitemeter), mailing list (Google Groups), molecule database (

Ding dong - one of my bells emailed me today. Someone was at the gate of the BioChemFoo area on Nature Island in Second Life and wanted assistance with setting up a poster. When I logged on I found Lali Ewry (a researcher) and Bronwen Pizzicato (from Nature Protocols) still waiting there.

If you wander around the SciFoo Lives On area, you will notice that some of the poster booths have bells. If the text above them is green, it indicates that the presenter is somewhere in Second Life. The visitor can then just click on the bell to summon the presenter with a quick message. If the text is red, the presenter is not in world. However, a message can still be sent and it will show up the next time they log in. Now this can be problematic for users who created a Second Life account exclusively for the purpose of presenting or attending a SciFoo Lives On session since they are unlikely to login again and retrieve IM messages.

There have been a few additions to the SciFoo Lives On area on Nature Island in Second Life. The area has been divided into 36 numbered plots and most posters from the first two sessions have been moved to fill the first 10 spots. Posters for future sessions will be added sequentially as they are created. (Thanks to Eloise and Beth for help with this!) This makes the area much more appealing and permits regular poster sessions where people can meet at any time to present and discuss. I have been a huge fan of the effectiveness of poster sessions in Second Life after my first experience.

Our second session of SciFoo Lives On took place today on Nature Island in Second Life (SLURL). The topic was Medicine and Web 2.0, as suggested by Bertalan Mesko (Berci) at the last session. We had a very good turnout, with about 30 people. Many returned from last week's session but there were many new faces also. Berci ran the session with me and helped out all week with getting our presenters set up with posters and general navigation.