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In a paper published in the journal Science, Terry Hazen and his colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discovered in late May through early June 2010 that a previously unknown species of cold-water hydrocarbon-eating bacteria have been feasting on the underwater oil plumes degrading them at accelerated rates. (11) We can now understand why, on May 15, BP/Synthetic Genome's CEO Craig Venter hinted of a new hydrocarbon-eating synthetic genome. Prior to that date, JCVI had already applied for numerous additional patents (we were able to find seven) regarding synthetic bioremediation, such as bacteria synthetic genomes which provide unique DNA information required for "replication of a free-living organism". In layman's terms, this means the BP and Synthetic Genome scientists had already created self-replicating bacteria "wherein the assembled DNA molecule is a [synthetic] genome" back in 2007. (13)