nodalpoint.org

I have been noticing that Nodalpoint's "Who's online" box has been showing somewhere in between 20 to 80 people online at any given time and this got me thinking again on how internet has been such a strong positive force for the development of collaborative work. Open source software comes to mind as one of the best examples of what you can achieve by getting interested people together in a virtual space. Why can't we do the same for scientific research ?