Genomes on the map
by Tateru Nino 
Mar 27th 2008 at 10:30AM
Filed under: Culture, Second Life, Academic, Virtual worlds
Genome Island in Second Life is a real treat if you're a genetics geek or a science geek. If you're not, it's still an amazingly cool place to visit. Max Chatnoir (Dr M. A Clark, Professor of Biology, Texas Wesleyan University) has brought this site to life along with the help of some skilled and able assistants, most notably Elizabeth Gloucester (Professor of Microbial Molecular Genetics at a medica school in New England), and Apaul Balut (Professor of Microbiology at a medical school in the Midwest USA).
Three-dimensional protein sequences hang in the air, among educational displays and trivia games, and giant reproductions of individual cells, with labeled structures in motion and larger than your head.
Genome island is full of information and activities. You can mate fruit-flies, play with a herd of Mixollamas, look at human chromosomal sequences, see a demonstration of Mendel's principle of Independent Assortment.
There are plenty of activities and displays, allowing you to observe the inheritance of dominant and recessive genetic traits, play with bacterial transformation and more.
Some of the information is very advanced, but much of it is accessible to those with only very modest science and biology educations. Genome Island may not be a substitute for a full lab and lecturing professor, but what it does provide is interactive and engaging experiences that make knowledge stick.
It's also amazingly cool. Did we mention it was amazingly cool? If science and genetics interest you, Genome Island is well worth the visit.
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