Synthetic Cells: The Latest Vinyl?

Believe it or not, science has now claimed to have made “synthetic life.” Life created from non-living substances. J Craig Venter and colleagues, after a decade of work, produced a man-made version of the entire DNA content (genome) of a bacteria (adding in a couple of harmless “watermarks” to track it) and inserted it into the shell of another bacteria after removing its DNA. And, lo and behold, the artificial genome starting making proteins and the man-made bacteria began to replicate.
You may remember J. Craig Venter as the man in corporate biotech a decade back who challenged the U.S. government in a race to completely encode the entire human genome. The testosterone or Viagra to hard to reach but important areas of the body.