Here is the Science announcement that is causing quite a stir.

This is “a defining moment in the history of biology and biotechnology,” says Mark Bedau, a philosopher at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and editor of the scientific journal Artificial Life. “It represents an important technical milestone in the new field of synthetic genomics,” says yeast biologist Jef Boeke of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

Here is the article’s abstract.

Here is the mp3 of the announcement as published by The Guardian.

Here is The Guardian‘s take (the “playing god” loony tunes have already begun to respond).

The cover of the relevant issue has nothing to do with the Venter et al article.