Second Nature Basics

 
Absolute Basics

What is Second Life?

  • Second Nature lecture areaSecond Life is a Virtual World. Anyone with a broadband internet connection can create a persona, called an avatar, and enter into this virtual world. In there, you can meet and communicate with other people, join groups, create objects or attend lectures, music gigs, art exhibitions and any other events you can imagine.

What is Nature doing in Second Life?

  • The short answer: we are experimenting with Second Life as a medium for communication between scientists, both one-to-one and one-to-many communication. Additionally, we are investigating its potential for other scientific purposes including modelling and displays by allowing any scientist with an idea to use our land free of charge to try it out on.
  • Second Nature articficial ecosystemThe long answer: We first became really interested in Second Life in 2006 and midway through the year, Cory Ondrejka (Cory Linden) came to visit the Nature offices in London and gave us all an introduction to Second Life. From then on, we were hooked. In November we purchased our first island. We initially worked with several freelancers to create exhibits on the island, the most successful of which was the M4 (Magical Molecular Model Maker), a gadget which looked rather like a bubblegum machine, which allowed you to approach it in Second Life and type in the name of any molecule you like. It would go away, search the PubChem database for the 3D structural information and generate a 3D ball and stick model of the molecule in front of your eyes.
  • Magical Molecular ModelThe M4 is fully functional (it's been released under the GPL, so send a message to me, Joanna Wombat, if you'd like a copy to play with) and quite cool but we soon realised this wasn't the way to go: it was more a proof of concept than anything actually *useful*. There are other molecule rezzers in Second Life, and it seemed that real scientists would have a better idea of what would actually be valuable to them than we would. So we threw open our doors: we have land, an expensive commodity in Second Life, and we want to see the full potential of this world, so from January 2007, any scientist who was interested in Second Life for any reason and wanted to try it out was welcome to do so free of charge on our island. There are now dozens of varied exhibits on the island - see Exhibits for more info.
  • Second Nature lectureAs we learnt more about Second Life, I began to become more and more convinced that its main value is as a communication medium. In the summer we launched the Second Nature lecture series: a series of events where we invited a scientist into our offices, and they gave a talk in Second Life to anyone who chose to come. We have now held about a dozen such events and they have been really successful: every week I dread that no-one will turn up and every week people do, and really join in on the discussion, and tell me afterwards how much they enjoyed it. So in 2008 we will continue this - the main lecture series will continue with scientists from all disciplines, we will continue to hold mini-conferences, such as our Climate Change conference in December, and we will continue to help other scientists hold their own events, on our island or elsewhere. If you would like to give a talk, nominate a speaker, hold an event, or just chat about this, please do contact me at j.scott [at] nature.com or in Second Life as Joanna Wombat.

Getting Started

How to get an avatar.

  • Second Nature avatarJoining is free; go to the Second Life website to register. You choose a name, enter your various details and pick how you want to look. You can be a human or a raccoon. Depends who you ask as to which is cooler! Then you are asked if you would like to join a community. I recommend skipping this and just going to Second Life's basic orientation island.
  • When you have got your account, it will prompt you to download Second Life. When it has finished (warning, it takes ages), you can open the new Second Life program you have just downloaded and login. If you get an error message when you try, you may have a firewall problem - this is particularly true for people in institutions or behind corporate firewalls. Ask your IT people to open the ports listed here

Where to go first

  • Orientation IslandYou will find yourself appearing on Orientation Island. Welcome! Orientation Island was made by Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, and involves a whole series of tasks to help you learn how to fly, walk, speak etc. When you have completed Orientation Island, or are bored, teleport to Second Nature
  • As well as Second Nature, there are obviously dozens of interesting science places to see in Second Life. Go to the Resources section to see some of our favourites.
  • SLurl exampleTo help you get directly to a place in Second Life, many people use SLurls. A SLurl is a link which is like a normal link: when you click on it, it takes you to another location. The only difference is, when you click on a SLURL, it takes you not to a webpage, but to a location in Second Life. If you already have Second Life open when you click on a SLurl, it will automatically bring up the map in SL and offer you a teleport. If you do not, it will take you to a webpage which will show you the map and ask if you want to open Second Life and teleport to the selected place. Throughout our site, we have used SLurls: to get to a place we describe, simply click on the link.
  • Another way to find places is by co-ordinates: every location in Second Life has an x, y and z co-ordinate. When in Second Life, if you know the co-ordinates of your destination, you can put them into the map and teleport directly there.

How to get help?

  • Help IslandYour first time in Second Life can be difficult and confusing: this barrier to entry is really well known and the Second Life people are working on it. They reckon that about 1 in 10 people who try Second Life actually "get" it and stick with it for more than a few minutes. My personal opinion is that unless you are familiar with similar worlds or games, it takes several hours to really begin to feel comfortable and know exactly what you're doing. I was in Second Life for weeks before it started to click - a bit like driving a car. But when you get it, it is worth it, so if you're interested, it's definitely worth visiting a few times to get a feel for it before you give up.
  • Joanna Wombat avatarI also think it helps to have a guide to introduce you (and rescue you if you get lost!) at the beginning - if you would like a tour, some help or just a friendly face on your "Friends" list, by all means contact me any time and I'd be happy to meet up in world.

    You can contact me any time at j.scott[at]nature.com, or just by IMing (Instant Messaging) me, Joanna Wombat, in Second Life. We also have a Second Life group on Nature Network, so please feel free to join and ask any questions at all. Aside from us, you can get help from Second Life - on their website, they have a really detailed Knowledge Base with all sorts of help - and if you're in Second Life and stuck, you can get help from a real person by going to the Help menu at the top of your screen.

 

Projects in Second Life

Got an idea?

Email us at j.scott [at] nature.com, send a message to Joanna Wombat or start a topic in the Second Life forum at Nature Network