Second life was briefly shutdown yesterday by a “gray goo” virus overloading Second Life servers - halting a virtual community made up of 1.5 million “residents”.

According to GameSpot, the worm appeared in-game as spinning gold rings floating in the air. When touched by an avatar, the gold rings replicated, meaning that the worm rapidly multiplied until the game experienced severe lag and the server connection was lost.

The creators took the game offline on Sunday to “isolate” the goo, and “clean up the grid.”

Links: Headline News, Gamespot