Tiny Artificial Life

[Dyna]

Really scary to me!Especially this

self-replicate (divide and reproduce),

I can just imagine some weird man made thing they don't even know what it will do getting on someones shoe and walking out of the lab!!

They say

That said, the technique promises better avenues for making germs that do everything from eating oil to making biofuels.

What about it evolving once out? Coule the weird animal eating goo that was in AK waters have once been oil eating released bacteria? The first reports certainly did not call it algae as they did later.
Then florida another oli spill area

3,000+ foot long mysterious black blob of killer "toxic goo" found near Florida coast

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/3000-foot-long-mysterious-black-blob-of-killer-toxic-goo-found-near-florida-coast-appears-to-be-growing/

An artificial bacterial genome with the smallest number of genes needed for life has been created in a lab, opening the way for creating synthetic organisms with customized sets of genes aimed at specific tasks, such as eating oil.

The newly created bacterium, which can metabolize nutrients and self-replicate (divide and reproduce), brings the team one step closer to building custom artificial life with particular functionalities, they said.

The artificial bacterium has only 473 genes, compared with the thousands that exist in wild bacteria. The team doesn't yet know the function of 149 of these essential-to-life genes. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]

The adds on this website make me fume! I have to wait forever http://www.livescience.com/54165-artificial-bacterium-has-smallest-genome.html

[Littleenki]

Id surmise it will be a carrier bacteria, able to be morphed into other beneficial or not so beneficial forms with labwork.

Key is, what will it do when exposed to random bacteria if it ever gets out, like you say, on a shoe..weird times mate.