Paint-By-Numbers Statue of Liberty In the latest Science Issue, the Venter Lab (Gibson et al. 2010) report that they have successfully created an "artificial genome" Mycoplasma mycoides which they transplanted into Mycoplasma capricolum cell to create a new Mycoplasma mycoides cell. In other words, they put the DNA of "A" into an organism of type "B". Just by doing so, they "converted" B into A. This begs the question.... So what? The dream of creating artificial life - that is to say recreate life from scratch with inanimate starting components - has been the dream of some researchers that want to get at the question of:"What is life?" Of these researchers, Craig Venter probably has been the most recognized figure. Craig Venter claims that understanding how one can create life from scratch will also give us the ability to create purpose-driven life-forms. With the current oil spill an example comes to mind where one could cr...