MAN MADE LIFE? 

New research has brought us closer than ever to synthesizing entirely new forms of life. An international team of researchers has shown that artificial nucleic acids - called "XNAs" - can replicate and evolve, just like DNA and RNA.

The researchers, led by Philipp Holliger and Vitor Pinheiro, synthetic biologists at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, say their findings have major implications in everything from biotherapeutics, to exobiology, to research into the origins of genetic information itself. This represents a huge breakthrough in the field of synthetic biology.

The implications of the team's findings are numerous and far-reaching. For one thing, the study sheds significant light on the origins of life itself. In the past, investigations into XNA have been largely driven by the question of whether simpler genetic systems may have existed before RNA and DNA the fact that these XNAs appear to be capable of evolution adds to an ever-growing body of evidence of a genetic system predating DNA and RNA both.

These studies have made us realize how different alien life forms may be from us and also that life can exist in ways much different than we have observved. How close are we to creating new life forms ourselves away from nature? I would say about.... 2 years in the past. scientists have already created very simple life forms with no ancestors (man made life forms). Here is an article explaining the findings and research of Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith I highly recommend you read it if you have an interest in this sort of stuff http://www.economist.com/node/16163006