One worry is that the new science of synthetic biology, the souped-up form of genetic engineering that involves radically modifying organisms or even someday designing them from scratch, is both more promising and more dangerous that the technology that has been around for two decades and gave birth to Amgen (nasdaq: AMGN - news - people ), Genencor, and Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ).

FORBES: BP's Biotech Bet

Consider Disneyland's Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ) House of the Future, built in the mid 1950s.

FORBES: Ghosts Of Technologies Past

Then, he engineered the purchase and subsequent spinoff of Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ) in order to snag Celebrex, a blockbuster arthritis pill.

FORBES: Magazine Article

J. consulting firm, where he advised clients like Dow and Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ) on whether to enter new markets or add plants.

FORBES: Chemical Balance

Almost all of that came from dirt, fertilizer, bug spray and weed killers sold under brand names Scotts, Miracle-Gro, Ortho--brands it owns--and Roundup, marketed through an agreement with Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ).

FORBES: Organic Miracle Needed

But it should fit cleanly with Bayer's agrochemicals division, creating the world's third-largest herbicides business and allowing it to compete more evenly with biotech crop and agrochemicals giants Monsanto (nyse: MON - news - people ) and Syngenta (nyse: SYT - news - people ).

FORBES: Bayer And Aventis Get Chummy

Also the ETC (an action group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration)--the same group that had lobbied against Monsanto 's (nyse: MON - news - people ) genetically engineered crops in the 1990s--has called for nothing less than a moratorium on the use of synthetic nanoparticles in the lab and in commercial products.

FORBES: Nanotech Vs. The Green Gang