Seems that Dr. Craig Venter, the private geneticist, has created a new bacteria in the lab. He took out genetic material from a soil bacteria and inserted genetic material created by assembling amino acids in a predetermined sequence. This has naturally created comment. Some scientists have hailed it as a breakthrough and a eureka moment. They say that this will create a whole new branch of industrial production of new bacteria which will revolutionise the future. Opponents have deplored it as ' frankenstein bugs ' or ' playing God '. Using emotional language of ethics, morality or religion is not the answer. Since this is science then it has to be looked at logically. We already have many diseases caused by bacteria. Typhoid, cholera, pneumonia, tuberculosis still kill millions every year. Worse, bacteria have learnt to evolve with humans. Thus staphylococci have become meticillin and now vancomycin resistant. MDR and XDR tuberculosis is spreading. Bacteria which are harmless can cause disease and kill. Legionella are ubiquitous in the soil and water but when it got into the ventilation system at a veterans' convention people died. Creating a new bacteria may be very profitable but what if it escapes from the lab and is resistant to all known antibiotics. Creating dinosaurs is much safer. T. Rex can be killed but a drug resistant bacteria will not be eradicated so easily. And what about mistakes? The substitution of one amino acid, valine for another, glutamic acid causes sickle cell disease in humans with millions of genes. How much greater will be the difference in a bacteria. Creating something new just because we can is stupid. That is how nuclear weapons came into being and the world in immensely dangerous as a result. Time to stop and reflect. Logically.