Erich Bremer is a computer and systems engineer who has created Monolith, “a molecular visualization system created to display molecular structures within the virtual world known as Second Life and allow real-time interaction with the displayed structures”. It pulls information from the Rutgers Protein Data Bank and creates that structure in Second Life, allowing people to discuss its composition.

Here’s a short movie of Monolith in action:

There’s a relatively long history of molecular constructs in Second Life, but this is one of the more nuanced ones to date. For anyone needing to learn about molecules, this is likely a very useful resource for group discussion. Bremer himself is up front about the fact there are higher definition models that can be found online, but none that allow for this level of interaction and ease of discussion. I know when I was struggling with ribosomes and T-Cells in my nursing degree, I would have loved this as a tool to use with fellow students.

Over to you: do you see this as a truly useful adjunct to other teaching methods related to molecules?