No, this isn't science fiction.

The Washington Post reports that two scientists are planning on engineering and creating a man-made single-cell organism.

The project raises philosophical, ethical and practical questions. For instance, if a man-made organism proved able to survive and reproduce only under a narrow range of laboratory conditions, could it really be considered life? More broadly, do scientists have any moral right to create new organisms?

Hmm...I'm not really sure what to think about this yet.