SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: "Informed consent and virtual worlds: The avatar will see you now; A way of helping the mentally impaired to give informed medical consent," The Economist< 27 June 2009.

Simple concept: giving mental imagery to people who have a hard time imagining what will happen to them in a hospital--a new and better definition of informed consent for the impaired, but quite frankly, quite useful for kids, adults and damn near anybody.

Done through Second Life.

To me, this is something truly impressive.