A team of scientists says they have succeeded in creating the first living organism with a completely synthetic genome. This advance could be proof that genomes designed in a computer and assembled in a lab can function in a donor cell, eventually reproducing fully functional living creatures, that is, artificial life.

A new way of using the genetic code has been created, allowing proteins to be made with properties that have never been seen in the natural world. The breakthrough could eventually lead to the creation of new or "improved" life forms incorporating these new materials into their tissue.

The U.S. military's research arm, Darpa, is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As synthetic biologists attempt to build artificial life forms, a CAD system has been developed to allow them to redesign the stuff of life much faster and more easily.

The quest for eternal life, or at least prolonged youthfulness, has now migrated from the outer fringes of alternative medicine to the halls of Harvard Medical School.

A recent report from the Hastings Center and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars argue that because emerging technologies are not diverging from one another but converging, researchers should pursue an ethics of emerging technologies.

The growing market for preassembled DNA and public access to genetic blueprints for smallpox, Ebola and other diseases have raised concerns that an individual might build a devastating biological threat from scratch.

Some researchers and law-enforcement officials have raised red flags about biohackers, and have called for better oversight of "synthetic DNA," an ingredient widely used by professional biologists and hobbyists, saying it could theoretically lead to the creation of harmful viruses like Ebola or smallpox.

The U.S. Army is funding research into mitochondrial anti-aging solutions as a way to keep their "G.I.s as fresh as the day they entered basic training."

The author discusses the problems with government attempts to control biological technologies and introduces a joint Berkeley-industry project to develop improved DNA screening software, virulence databases, and advice portals for use by scientists as an indication of how scientists are attempting to self-police their field.