Wired 12.08: Craig Venter's Epic Voyage to Redefine the Origin of the Species

He trying to "sequence Mother Earth". Traveling the world collecting samples of bacterial ecosystems , and sequencing their genomes. He will just probably get a parts list of new genes but he then wants to put them in a minimal genome and figure out what they do.

Imagine what we will be able to do with the huge parts list he is creating.