Launching the Beagle in Second Life this Wednesday

I am now allowed to reveal that Second Nature, Nature Publishing Group's cleverly named space in Second Life, has not only rebuilt a scale replica of HMS Beagle in Second Life but they've placed her at the heart of an exciting new game called Notes from the Voyage which will be launched this Wednesday, 25th Feb at 6pm GMT (=10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern).

From the Second Nature announcement:

To complete the series of tasks in Notes from the Voyage, you will need to brave earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, swim among coral reef and uncover buried fossils, as well as encounter wildlife including jaguars, sloths and tortoises. Armed with your toolbag, compass and notebook, can you relive the highlights of Darwin's famous Beagle voyage and rediscover his key scientific findings? Prizes await all those who succeed.

Join us in Second Life from Wednesday 25th February on our stunning new addition to the Elucian Islands archipelago, which includes a lush re-creation of South America and the Galapagos Islands, as well as a Second Life scale replica of HMS Beagle.

And guess who's cutting the red ribbon at the launch event? That'd be me! You can bet I'll be thinking of it as practice for the real thing. I'll also be giving a talk about some Darwin bicentenary science projects at the Natural History Museum and of course the HMS Beagle Project. This will be the first in a series of talks on topics including "the history of Darwin and Darwinism in research today as well as themed podcasts and video". Details here.

Disclaimer: I barely know anything about Second Life and have only tried it just recently to preview this Notes on the Voyage game, but it seems pretty cool so far - if somewhat greedy of broadband - and this seems like as good a time as any to jump in, and it's free so hey, why not?