Paul Boutin has posted a story on his blog, "Biowar for Dummies," originally written for Wired Magazine but never published. I'll take this opportunity to correct two small points before the story is widely read.
1. The Molecular Sciences Institute is a non-profit research institute, not "a California biotech firm". It was founded by Sydney Brenner in 1996. I was a Research Fellow there from 1997 to 2002.
2. I am most emphatically not designing, nor building, new organisms in my home. I am, however, designing new proteins. I would prefer local and federal authorities not get confused about this.
Here is a link to the original paper with the "Carlson Curves", "The Pace and Proliferation of Biological Technologies," published in Biosecurity and Bioterrorism in 2003. There is more of my writing on the subject at www.synthesis.cc.