What is Second Life? Could it be used for anything useful? How could businesses use it? How could education use it? Would you use it? Why or why not?

Second Life is a virtual world that was made public in 2003, and can be accessed by anyone with a Internet connection. In this 3-dimensional world you first create a character called an avatar. This avatar will represent you in this world. The purpose of Second Life is to provide a realm where people can connect and interact with other residents by joining groups, socializing, shopping, buying virtual property, starting a business, show art work in galleries, and exploring this virtual word by participating in wide range of activities like, driving a race car or scuba diving.
Second life can be used for educational purposes. Students would be able to delve into real-life studies that would be moreover difficult in the natural world. For instance, as a student you could delve into an virtual African animal safari study, and get up close and personal with apes. Or perhaps there could be a class on how to diffuse bombs for S.W.A.T. teams. Imagine a virtual study of life on a space station, in zero gravity, walking though step by step what astronauts experience and the sights they may see . In addition, this virtual world could become the next step to providing a global hands on experience with some subjects that are near impossible to truly study.
On a personal basis, I would definitely use Second Life. If I had the time and money I would like to set up a virtual Art Gallery. I believe I could display my works of art, and network with people all over the world by discussing and selling my works. This would not only open my art to a virtual world wide market, but perhaps by communicating with more people this would lead me into new groups, and then eventually lead me into actually traveling to distant lands.