We have created synthetic life.

[ILOVEJESUS]

I didn't know this till yesterday evening watching a discovery science documentary. But we have already managed to create a synthetic cell, or connect DNA within it making it, well, alive.

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form

Not really new, but new to me. Anyone else know about it?

[Grigory]

The new organism is based on an existing bacterium that causes mastitis in goats, but at its core is an entirely synthetic genome that was constructed from chemicals in the laboratory.

(emphasis added)

True, it's quite an achievement, but they didn't create life from scratch - it appears that they just copy-pasted existing genetic code and made some alterations. It would have been far more impressive if they managed to come up with the code entirely on their own, without piggybacking off Mother Nature... Give it another decade or two.

[ILOVEJESUS]

As far as I am aware the DNA actually linked synthetically as opposed to naturally. Indeed anything particularly radical is no doubt in the future, hopefully forseeable.