Using Half Life 2 in Academia

On the O'Reilly editors list, Brian Jepson pointed to a Microsoft Research podcast on using Half Life 2 for unexpected purposes. The talk description:
 

"Valve Software, makers of the wildly popular Half-Life series of video games, will present an overview of the Source engine used in the development of Half-Life 2 and explain how you can use this engine within your classroom experience to teach video game development concepts. The talk includes a brief history of the mod scene and how it grew during Half-Life's lifetime, a tour and explanation of the primary technical features and tools Valve developed for Half-Life, and an overview of academic licensing for Half-Life 2 and Visual C++."

There's some really cool stuff in here on using the Half-Life 2 Source engine to create simulations.

When someone asks (at 11:41) about visualization for life sciences, I love the answer "the difference between a gun and a gene is just the number of polygons and the intention." That belongs on a t-shirt.