Collaborative Writing Assignment 1

For my first blog post I'll be talking about two subjects that deal with essentially the same thing. Multi-player gaming has taken the world by storm in the past 2 or 3 years with games like World of Warcraft and Second Life. With these games, players are able to make their own digital representation of themselves called avatars. While in these online worlds the players are enticed with the possibility that they can do anything. This form of customization and individuality makes for hours of fun for gamers; however, scientists from Rutgers and Tufts University have conducted study on the first virtual epidemic. Players contracted a disease called 'corrupted blood' while fighting a powerful monster. Higher leveled characters would not be deeply affected by this disease however, a glitch in the game allowed these players to bring the disease into the world. This would cause great harm or death to lower classed players.
These scientists have found great opportunity in studying diseases in a simulated human environment. Before now, it was impossible to study the mass effect of a disease on a population, now, a simple video game once considered of no scholarly application has given scientists endless possibilities in combating epidemics.

"Rutgers University; Virtual Gameworlds as Models for Real-World Epidemics." TB & Outbreaks Week (2007). Proquest. Karl E. Mundt Library, Madison. 18 Sept. 2007.