BBC News:

Dr Venter's team intends to construct an organism with a "minimal genome" that can then be inserted into the shell of a bacterium.

By removing genes, one by one, from a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium they identified the minimum number of genes required for this particular organism to replicate, or reproduce, in its controlled environment.

They have been able to remove 101 of its 482 genes without killing the bacterium, meaning that 381 were required for replication.

But generating a man-made living organism from the bottom up requires much more than just its minimal genome.

For example, in order to get the genes to do something, there have to be chemicals to translate the genes into messenger RNA and proteins.

Scientists around the world have been wrestling with the task of generating a so-called free-living synthetic organism for years.

Venter's ostensible goal is to get his tiny artificial friends to photosynthesize ecologically friendly fuels, such as hydrogen or ethanol, or perhaps be tasked to help with our own nasty by-product, global warming; the little critters tuned to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Ethanol, all the rage domestically, is currently made in large quantities in the U.S. using an awfully energy-intensive process via corn feedstock. Farm subsidies feed this otherwise economically infeasible technology.

Pat Mooney of the Ottawa-based Erosion, Technology and Concentration Group (ETC), termed Venter's work "a biological bombshell." Jim Thomas, also with ETC, earnestly speculated that once you've tossed together an artificial bacterium, "it becomes a small step to do the same for a plant, an animal, and eventually even a human being." Inflatable dolls could soon become a nostalgia item.

Mooney noted that "You can't count on containing a living organism in the lab; it will always get out," pointing to the case of StarLink corn, a genetically engineered crop intended only for livestock because it contained a protein considered unsafe for humans. The engineered corn gene escaped into the corn supply in 2000, costing the industry more than $600 million in recalls.

It is estimated that bacteria make up over 90% of life forms on Earth by weight, and have been around since dirt was young. Humans are walking bacterial colonies. Human digestion, for example, is the result of bacterial interaction with the body. The study of bacterial relationships is still in its infancy, and hardly understood, but scientists already know, as vividly demonstrated in numerous cop-buddy movies, different bacteria work together for mutual benefit, not to mention entertainment.

Bacteria replicate and mutate as easily as people order lattes at Starbucks. When we finish destroying our habitat with our terminal stupidity, bacteria will grieve the loss of humans as a popular, rather funky, host, but will party on in their own way.