For anyone with time on their hands to live out their lives in a virtual world (I’m still pretty fascinated by this world of mountains and beaches and child like wonder) nanotechnology has come to Second Life in the form of “Nanotechnology Island.” UgoTrade has an extended piece on it here and the developers at the UK National Physical Laboratory have their own NanoIsland Blog.
Refreshingly, the Island is more about science than science fiction, although it remains to be seen how interested the metaverse denizens will be in learning the principles of secondary ion mass spectrometry when there is all that flying, teleporting and virtual sex to compete with.