The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) website recently featured a talk by Craig Venter about his work on synthetic biology and its possible applications for the creation of microbial life forms which have the ability to efficiently capture/convert carbon dioxide into “fourth-generation biofuels”. Fourth generation biofuels are those that are obtained from feedstocks and can capture/store carbon dioxide or convert it into useful/non-harmful forms, during feedstock cultivation or during the biofuel processing of the feedstock. In simple terms, the creation of “synthetic life” starts with the chemical construction of a synthetic chromosome containing the desired target genes, inserting the synthetic chromosome into an “empty” (chromosome-fee) cell, and then “booting up” the transformed cell in order to regenerate it. Craig Venter is known for his efforts on the sequencing of the human genome, and is active in synthetic biology research. The complete video of Mr. Venter’s talk can be accessed at the TED website (URL above)..