Highlights from the New Scientist:

A network of artificial cells that work together to act as an AC/DC converter has been built. Demonstrating that synthetic cells can team up to achieve such feats is a step towards building synthetic tissues to interface biology with electronics, says the team of chemists behind the work.

Individuals are applying the principals of open source software to the worlds of do-it-yourself biology and synthetic biology.

The time of the amateur dilletante scientist seems to be over. It takes the huge, collective organisation of private individuals to challenge this monopoly. GNU/Linux has managed to make a significant challenge but what of open science, not just the actual use of free software as practised by CERN but utilizing the whole philosophy of organizing scientific endeavour on the principles of open source? Some amateur biohackers think they have the answer.

Highlights from ABC Science:

Bacteria may be regarded as simple organisms, but scientists have created a strain that can count to three. The advance by scientists from Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could lead to environmental or biological sensors that measure toxins and then self-destruct once their job is done.

Impressive advancements have been taking place in the field of Synthetic Biology recently.  James Collins, a pioneer in the field, helped develop a technique that predicts how networks of genes will behave prior to synthesis.  The project that served as the test bed?  Brewing beer of course!  The techniques developed can be applied to more 'important' tasks such as the manufacture of bio-fuels and drugs (although I'm sure will say that it's hard to find a more worthy cause than creating the perfect brew).

Synthetic biology is the branch of genetic engineering involving genetic sequence componentization and the combination of those components.  Synthetic biologists take a similar approach to genetics as hardware and software engineers do to product development.  For instance, in software design one develops components as a way to provide design and implementation reuse.

Components adhere to interfaces which allow them to be used without the the need to know about the internal details of the component.  The component can be treated as a black box - one doesn't need to understand what is occurring within the component, only what interface that component exposes and the behavior that component exhibits.