The Mandala is a detailed sand representation of the residence of the Medicine Buddha and one will be constructed by Tibetan monks over four days in Paris while simultaneously being displayed virtually in Second Life.

This confluence of technology and religion will get the message out about the situation in Burma, according to members of the Mind Science Institute and executives at a London think tank called Unfrozenmind, who have collaborated on the Second Life simulcast of the actual event.

Not everyone - okay, no one outside the Chinese government - is all that happy about things in Burma these days so they believe this will promote awareness of the situation there and aid Monks and Nuns of Burma in their efforts at independence.

'Social science' is not like the social sciences - economics, psychology, etc. - rather it's a mix of science and 'social news.' We're in the social news business but a niche part of it. We stick to science yet we're social news because a great part of the content is decided by you: you write it, you read it and your interest in specific articles is what decides the content on the main page. The more people that like an article and comment on it, the higher up it appears on our site.

Web 2.0, Science 2.0, whatever we call it, it's catching on. From the beginning of our private beta in February until now we have gone from no readers to hundreds of thousands per month.