I guess it depends on how you define "life". In 1953, a young chemist named Stanley Miller carried out a historic experiment at the University of Chicago. He attempted to recreate the conditions during the Earth's early days by sparking electricity through a mixture of water and gases sealed in a flask. When Miller analysed the results, he was pleased to find traces of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Today, molecular biologists have been making strides with a top-down approach, breaking apart the innards of bacteria and viruses, and reassembling the components. Just last month, Craig Venter, famous for his pioneering work on the human genome project, announced his intention to create a brand new life form. Venter plans to strip down and reconstruct the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, a primitive microbe that inhabits the genital tract. However, this isn't making life so much as rearranging it. In other words, they use the products of living organisms to re-make living organisms. They remain a long way from being able to put together a living cell from scratch.