Scientists a step nearer to creating artificial life  · New
progress towards synthetic organism · Hope of fuels, drugs and
ways to fight pollution  To the untrained eye, the tiny,
misshapen, fatty blobs on Giovanni Murtas's microscope slide
would not look very impressive. But when the Italian scientist
saw their telltale green fluorescent glint he knew he had
achieved something remarkable - and taken a vital step towards
building a living organism from scratch.  The green glow was
proof that his fragile creations were capable of making their
own proteins, a crucial ability of all living things and vital
for carrying out all other aspects of life.  Though only a first
step, the discovery will hasten efforts by scientists to build
the world's first synthetic organism. It could also prove a
significant development in the multibillion-dollar battle to
exploit the technology for manufacturing commercially valuable
chemicals such as drugs and biofuels or cleaning up pollution.
The achievement is a major advance fo