What: The Scientist article on virtual collaboration among cancer researchers.
Bottom line: This article is a little technical, but the part about a virtual collaboration tool is understandable even to someone outside the medical field. The author discusses the creation of an online platform, called as caBIG (pronounced see-a-big), that integrates data worldwide and provides tools for a virtual community of cancer researchers. With the help of this platform, cancer research and treatment will be accelerated when multiple members of this community (i.e., those from the fields of genomics, proteomics, pathology, imaging, and clinical trials), each with a different set of needs and perspectives, use and share research data. This article is relevant to organizations wanting to integrate across silos of data and tools that hinder collaboration. See useful videos.

What: Wall Street Journal article on technology companies offering their workers private workspace in virtualworlds.
Post to which it is related: The Future of Virtual Teams: Collaboration in 3D Web
Bottom line: The article talks about companies like IBM and Sun turning to virtual offices and landscapes as tools to help employees and business partners collaborate and learn. According to this article, IBM is expected to announce that it will run Linden software on its own servers to allow it to set up private Second Life environments.

What: eMediaWire press release announcing a new gaming virtual world called ourWorld.
Bottom line: This appears to be a blend of the usual massively multiplayer game and a virtual world – there are numerous things to do, and some of them have a goal or mission. It’s interesting to see a new idea emerge about what a virtual world can be.

What: Forbes.com Q&A with Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life’s Linden Labs.
Bottom line: This Q&A quickly sums up a lot of the growing pains of Second Life. Since it’s the largest virtual world, it seems to be the first going through a lot of the ups and downs that other virtual communities might also experience.