hmmm..I dont know..
first of all, the concept alone is really scary..*natural* mutant bacteria are bad enough..
second, its not really *wholly* synthetic..only one small part of it..
it still needs 99.9% of a real bacteria to "live"..
its not really a "synthetic cell"..as they claim..
sounds like only ONE chromosome was created in the computer..
Isnt it like putting an artificial heart in a human and saying "we have created a synthetic human"?
yeah, its cool and all, but its not really "a synthetic organism"
(maybe a better analogy would be a synthetic brain in a human!
but even then, you still havent created "Data" from Star Trek....although I suppose this computer generated chromosome is the first step to getting there!
Scot