Slashdot Mirror

kkleiner writes "The world's first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL announced it had been awarded a $34.5M contract with DARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthetic in five individuals over the next two years."

kkleiner writes "BlindType has created a new touchscreen keyboard program of the same name that changes size, orientation, and position to match your wandering fingers as they type. BlindType also features some of the most impressive typing correction software I've ever seen. The result is a practical touchscreen interface that knows what you meant to type, even if you make mistakes. Lots of them. In fact, you can type without looking at the screen at all."

kkleiner writes "A telescopic implant that fits directly into the eye to treat certain kinds of blindness has finally received FDA approval for use in the US after more than five years of waiting. The Implantable Miniature Telescope (IMT) is used to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a condition that affects millions around the world. For many, the center part of their vision becomes blurred or completely dark. The IMT is surgically implanted into the cornea and acts to expand an incoming image onto the peripheral parts of the retina that are undamaged by AMD. The commercial version of the IMT is called CentraSight and is in development by VisionCare Inc. There are likely hundreds of thousands of potential patients in the US alone who may be able to have their vision partially restored now that CentraSight has garnered FDA approval."

kkleiner writes "Willow Garage has pulled off the ultimate engineering feat: teaching a PR2 robot to fetch you a beer from the fridge. Not only can the PR2 select the correct brew from the fridge, it can deliver, and even open the beer as needed. That's right, all the humans have to do is drink and relax. Prepare yourself for some major robot-envy as you check out the PR2 delivering much-needed refreshment in the video."

kkleiner writes "Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA has developed a microscope attachment for a cell phone – turning the device into a sort of mobile medical lab. It's both lightweight (~38g or 1.5 oz) and cheap (parts cost around $10). The cellphone microscope can analyze blood and saliva samples for microparticles, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and water borne parasites. Ozcan and his team have recently won three prestigious awards for the device: a Grand Challenges award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (worth $100,000), the National Geographic Emerging Explorer award (worth $10,000), and the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation ($400,000). With these funds, Ozcan plans on starting case studies in Africa to see how the microscope can help revolutionize global medicine."

kkleiner writes "Over the past few years, several research teams have developed increasingly smaller and cheaper biosensors with improved detection capabilities and faster turnaround times. Whether you are a doctor diagnosing patients in the rural areas of Africa or a Homeland Security agent working to thwart an act of bioterrorism, one of these little devices should be your sidekick."

kkleiner writes "One of the exciting ideas being tossed around recently at the X Prize Foundation is the creation of an Artificial Intelligence physician that you could access from your smartphone. Want to know if that rash on your leg is poison ivy or smallpox? Take a photo of it with your phone and ask the AI. The possibilities are enormous, especially for the billion plus people around the world who live more than a few hours' walk or drive from the nearest doctor." This is one of four X Prizes in planning for the future. The other three are for an AI automobile driver, organ generation through stem cell use, and a deep sea submersible capable of exploring the sea floor.

kkleiner writes "Scientists are teaching an artificial intelligence how to classify galaxies imaged by telescopes like the Hubble. Manda Banerji at the University of Cambridge, along with researchers at University College London, Johns Hopkins, and elsewhere, has succeeded in getting the program to agree with human analysis at an impressive rate of more than 90%. Banerji used data from Galaxy Zoo, a massive online project that has used more than 250,000 volunteers to analyze more than 60 million galaxies. The new automated astronomer will help with even larger analytical projects on the horizon, taking care of trivial classifications and leaving the tough cases to humans."

kkleiner writes "A German-led team of researchers has developed a new version of an ophthalmological polymer to which the eye will bond and still function normally. 'The new polymer could help restore sight to thousands waiting for corneal transplants around the world. The artificial cornea has passed clinical trials and is ready to see expanded use in patients this year. ... In order to work in the human body, an artificial cornea has to meet some stringent requirements. First, it has to bond to the human eye around its edge. ... The center of the artificial cornea, however, does not promote cell growth and remains clear so that it can be seen through. The artificial cornea also has to move freely with the eyelid and balance moisture on its faces.'"

Anarki2004 writes "Sony recently debuted its latest in OLED technology: a 4.1-inch screen that's only 80 microns thick. The super-flexible display can roll up into a cylinder just 4mm in diameter while still showing moving images at 432×240 resolution. Instead of brittle integrated circuit chips, the screen has an on-panel gate-driven circuit — a world first, according to Sony. That innovation would allow everything but the power supply to roll and flex in applications."

kkleiner writes "The Shanghai World Expo got a special treat this past week in the Japanese pavilion, when Toyota's famed violin-playing robot thrilled the crowd with a rendition of the Chinese folk song Mo Li Hua (jasmine flower). The bipedal artificial violinist hasn't been seen much since its debut back in 2007. Now we have footage of the Toyota bot playing Mo Li Hua in Shanghai as well as its original rendition of Pomp and Circumstance from 2007."

nj_peeps writes "Harvard professor Hemant Thatte has developed a cocktail of 21 chemical compounds that he calls Somah, derived from the Sanskrit for 'ambrosia of rejuvenation.' Using Somah, Thatte and his team have accomplished some amazing feats with pig hearts. They can keep the organ viable for transplant up to 10 days after harvest — far longer than the four-hour limit seen in hospitals today. Not only that, but using low temperatures and Somah, they were able to take a pig heart that was removed post mortem and get it to beat 24 hours later in the lab."

kkleiner writes "Stanford's Junior, the robot car that took second place at DARPA's Grand Challenge in 2007, has learned how to perform a tire-squealing 180-degree spin into a skin-tight parking space. Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off. We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon, but Stanford shows us that at least for some driving tasks robot cars can already meet or even exceed human ability."

kkleiner writes "Selling products whose design anyone can access, edit, or use on their own is pretty crazy. It's also good business. At the annual hacker conference Foo Camp East this year, Phillip Torrone and Limor Fried from Adafruit Industries gave a rapid fire five-minute presentation on thirteen companies with million+ dollar revenues from open source hardware. The thirteen add up to $50 million this year. While this business model is counter-intuitive for those accustomed to our current patent- and copyright-encrusted system, Torrone and Fried estimate that the industry will reach a billion dollars by 2015."

kkleiner writes "It was only two months ago that we saw Mike Dobson's Cube Stormer Lego robot that could solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than 12 seconds. You would think that there was only one person in the world crazy enough and talented enough to pull this off, but now we have found someone else that is just as amazing. The latest Rubik's cube-solving Lego monstrosity is called the MultiCuber, and although it's constructed out of nothing but Mindstorms components and a laptop, it can solve 2×2, 3×3, 4×4, and 5×5 cubes all in the same build! As if that weren't enough, a larger version solves the dreaded 6×6 Rubik's. We discovered the MultiCuber when its creator, David Gilday (IAssemble), wrote us an email to brag about its puzzle-solving might. Consider us impressed, sir."

kkleiner writes "Adept's Quattro, a placement and sorting arm, took the title of fastest robot last year, but it was only recently during National Robotics Week that it met its most gruesome opponents: nerds with Wiimotes. Visitors tried to keep the Quattro from placing and sorting on a small mechanized platform by moving it using the Nintendo video controller. The bottom line is that when it comes to simplified and repetitive tasks there's really no beating robotic prowess."

kkleiner writes "What's the surest sign that robots aspire to be more like humans? They play video games. The Tetris-Bot operates completely without human interference to play games of old school Tetris on a computer. Creator Branislov Kisacanin patched together a webcam, a digital signaling processing board, and some NXT Lego as a fun educational project for his kids."

kkleiner writes "The armed forces of the world have already begun to hunt down and shoot robots. No, it's not the beginning of the man-machine war; it's a state-of-the-art training simulation that's very cool to watch. Australia-based Marathon Robotics has taken Segways and turned them into human-shaped autonomous robots capable of moving around streets and buildings just like people in a crowd! The Marathon bots can act like insurgents, hostages, or civilians, letting armed soldiers practice before being exposed to the real thing. The Australian Department of Defense already has a training camp using the robots, and the US Marine Corps will be establishing one this year."

kkleiner sends along an amazing video of what robot-controlled machining is coming to. "Industrial robots are getting precise enough that they're less like dumb machines and more like automated sculptors producing artwork. Case in point: Daishin's Seki 5-axis mill. The Japanese company celebrated its 50th anniversary last year by using this machine to carve ... a full-scale motorcycle helmet out of one piece of aluminum. No breaks, no joints, the 5-Axis mill simply pivots and rotates to carve metal at some absurd angles. Every cut is guided by sophisticated 3-D design software (Openmind’s HyperMill)."

kkleiner writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley used Willow Garage's PR2 robot to fold towels. The UCB programming used some innovative visual scanning techniques, allowing the PR2 to pick up a towel, find its corners, and fold it on a table perfectly. According to the paper presented at the 2010 ICRA (PDF), the robot successfully completed 50 out of 50 attempts to fold a single towel, and also folded 5 out of 5 towels when they were presented in a group. Is watching a robot do laundry really that exciting? Hell yes — wait until you see the video! UC Berkeley used a Willow Garage robot to develop their own sophisticated robotics program. That validates the whole premise of the PR2 — faster development by letting researchers use a common platform. Score one for open source robotics!"

kkleiner writes "Doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) along with colleagues at the University College London, the Royal Free Hospital, and Careggi University Hospital in Florence have successfully transplanted a trachea into a 10 year old boy using his own stem cells. A donor trachea was taken, stripped of its cells into a collagen-like scaffold, and then infused with the boy's stem cells. The trachea was surgically placed into the boy and allowed to develop in place. Because his own cells were used, there was little to no risk of rejection. This was the first time a child had received such a stem cell augmented transplant and the first time that a complete trachea had been used."

kkleiner writes "Robotic surgery is experiencing explosive growth in America's operating rooms, and the unquestioned industry leader in this field is the DaVinci robot, made by Intuitive Surgical. Only 14% of prostate surgeries in the US last year took place not using the DaVinci. Installations have grown from 210 systems seven years ago to 1,395 today. Although typically used for smaller surgeries like prostate removal and hysterectomies, the system was recently used for a kidney transplant, and more complicated procedures are expected in the future. The DaVinci is really just the first wave of robotic surgery as technology continues to push clumsy human hands out of the operating room." The article mentions some of the downsides, or perhaps the growing pains, of DaVinci robotic surgery: "According to a large study of Medicare patients, robotic prostate surgery led to fewer in-hospital complications, but had worse results for impotence and incontinence ..." Another company makes a simulator to train surgeons on the DaVinci. Embedded in the article is a 2009 TED talk on DaVinci by a surgeon.

kkleiner writes "For many years countless individuals in the US have had to watch with envy as dogs and horses with joint and bone injuries have been cured with stem cell procedures that the FDA has refused to approve for humans. Now, in an exciting development, Regenerative Sciences Inc. in Colorado has found a way to skirt the FDA and provide these same stem cell treatments to humans. The results have been stunning, allowing many patients to walk or run who have not been able to do so for years. There's no surgery required, just a needle to extract and then re-inject the cells where they are needed. There has always been a lot of hype around stem cells, but this is the real deal. Real humans are getting real treatment that works, and we should all hope that more companies will begin offering this procedure in other states soon."

kkleiner writes "Skinput is a system from Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison that monitors acoustic signals on your arm to translate gestures and taps into input commands. Just by touching different points on your arm, hand, or fingers you can tell your portable device to change volume, answer a call, or turn itself off. Even better, Harrison can couple Skinput with a pico projector so that you can see a graphic interface on your arm and use the acoustic signals to control it. The project is set to be presented at this year's SIGCHI conference in April, but you can check it out now in several video demonstrations."

kkleiner writes "Cube Stormer is the latest creation from Mike Dobson, aka Robotics Solutions, and not only is it made entirely out of Legos, it can solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than twelve seconds. Often it can finish in less than five! This thing looks bad-ass and is incredible to watch."

kkleiner writes "Terri Carlson is willing to marry you for your healthcare. This 45-year-old woman suffers from a genetic condition, C4 Complement Deficiency, which causes her body to attack itself (similar to Lupus). Faced with skyrocketing health costs, and unable to get insurance (she's currently on COBRA), Terri did the only thing she could do: she built a website and got on YouTube. Carlson's situation challenges the courts under a statute already on the books: GINA. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 keeps insurance companies from using genetic data to deny you coverage."

kkleiner writes to share a new device from Sonitus Medical that transmits sound to the inner ear via the teeth and jawbone. Dubbed "SoundBite," the device captures sound using a microphone in the ear and transmits to an in-the-mouth device that in turn sends the sounds through the jaw. "There are other hearing aid devices that utilize bone conduction. Most, however, use a titanium pin drilled into the jaw bone (or skull) to transmit sound to the cochlea. SoundBite seems to be the first non-surgical, non-invasive, easily removable device. While they are likely years from retail production, Sonitus Medical plans on having SoundBite ITMs fitted to each individual's upper back teeth and fabricated fairly quickly (1 to 2 weeks). A complete system is planned to include two ITMs, 1 BTE, and a charger. In the wider world of cochlear implants, SoundBite may only be fit for relatively specialized use. Still, the ability to easily upgrade or replace individual components makes the device competitive. A similar device could be adapted to provide audio for a personalized augmented reality system. Perhaps the Bluetooth headset of the future will involve actual teeth."

kkleiner writes "Japanese venture firm WIN Human Recorder Ltd is set to bring a health monitor patch to market that is capable of keeping tabs on all your vitals. The HRS-I is a small (30mm x 30mm x 5mm) lightweight (7g) device that adheres to your chest and relays the data it collects to a computer or mobile phone via wireless connection. While the HRS-I only directly monitors electrocardiograph information, body surface temperature, and movement (via accelerometers), it can connect to sensors for heart rate, brain waves, respiration and many other important health indicators. WIN is selling the HRS-I for around ¥30,000 (~$330) and providing monitoring software for around ¥10,000 (~$110)."

kkleiner writes "Open source robotics received a huge momentum boost last Friday. Willow Garage, one of the driving forces behind the Robot Operating System, announced that it would be giving away ten of its new and extraordinary PR2 Beta Robots. Willow Garage has an open call for proposals, so that any research group can apply to receive one of the PR2 Betas free of charge. Applicants will have to release their research with the PR2 freely and under standard open source agreements. In this way, Willow Garage is accelerating the field of robotics, not just by making their PR2 Betas available, but by encouraging the shared development of robots and advocating an open source approach."

kkleiner writes "ARMAR, or Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Repair, is a head mounted display unit that provides graphic overlays to assist you in making repairs. An Android phone provides an interface to control the graphics you view during the process. Published in IEEE, and recently tested with the United States Marine Corps on an armored turret, ARMAR can cut maintenance times in half by guiding users to the damaged area and displaying 3D animations to demonstrate the appropriate tools and techniques."

kkleiner writes "Ray Kurzweil, prolific inventor and Singularity enthusiast, is planning to debut Blio at CES 2010. Blio is an e-reader platform, not hardware, that can be used on PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod touch. Developed by Kurzweil company knfb Reading, Blio preserves the original format of books including typography, and illustrations, in full color. It also takes advantage of knfb’s high quality text to speech capabilities and supports animation and video content."

kkleiner writes "The Shadow Dextrous Hand is a robotic arm that allows for fine motor control and precise movements. It's accurate enough to pick up an egg, screw in a light bulb, or thread a needle. Even cooler, researchers can control it with a 'Cyber glove,' allowing for 24 distinct human movements that mimic the user's own hand. A British based company, Shadow, has been displaying the hand for several years now, and recently demonstrated its latest model at IREX 2009. The hand, toted as the world's most advanced, is available for sale to researchers (pricing has not been made public)."

kkleiner writes "Singularity Hub has just unveiled its second annual roundup of the best robots of the year. In 2009 robots continued their advance towards world domination with several impressive breakouts in areas such as walking, automation, and agility, while still lacking in adaptability and reasoning ability. It will be several years until robots can gain the artificial intelligence that will truly make them remarkable, but in the meantime they are still pretty awesome."

kkleiner writes "You may remember Liam Hoekstra, the baby apparently born without the myostatin gene, and consequently sporting 40% more skeletal muscle than his peers. Using gene therapy, NCH scientists have been able to get follistatin (a myostatin blocker) to promote phenomenal muscle growth in macaque monkeys. NCH is now working with the FDA to perform the preliminary steps necessary for a human clinical trial. Is this the prelude to a super-strength gene therapy for all of us?"

kkleiner writes "Organovo and strategic partner Invetech hope in 2010 to release a commercial version of their 3D organ printer capable of producing very basic tissues like blood vessels. While it is still limited to simple tissue structures (full organs are a long ways off), Organovo plans to deliver the printers to various research institutions interested in organ and tissue production. Working with these institutions, Organovo hopes to one day progress to creating a system that can print organs as easily as other 3D printers print plastic figurines."

kkleiner writes "Bojan Nemec from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia recently presented his skiing robot at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). The robot won't be winning skiing records anytime soon and its usefulness as a ski instructor or in any other capacity seems quite a ways off. Nonetheless, the videos of this robot taking a ride down the ski slopes are well worth watching. In case you are wondering, this is a completely different robot than the one Slashdot covered earlier."

kkleiner writes "For all the glory it gets, the fingerprint has evolved very little in the last 60 years. They’re still two dimensional. The US Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Justice are hoping to change that. They've given grants to dozens of companies to perfect touchless 3D fingerprinting. Two universities (University of Kentucky and Carnegie Mellon) and their two respective start-up companies (Flashscan 3D and TBS Holdings) have succeeded. Fingerprints have reached the third dimension and they are faster, more accurate, and touchless."

Singularity Hub writes "A Ramen restaurant has just opened in Nagoya, Japan that uses robots instead of humans as its chefs. It may not seem that amazing at first, but once you see the video it is hard not to be blown away. The robotic chefs work their gastronomic magic in a kitchen placed front and center in the middle of the restaurant, giving customers a front row seat on the action."

Singularity Hub writes "A Ramen restaurant has just opened in Nagoya, Japan that uses robots instead of humans as its chefs. It may not seem that amazing at first, but once you see the video it is hard not to be blown away. The robotic chefs work their gastronomic magic in a kitchen placed front and center in the middle of the restaurant, giving customers a front row seat on the action."

Singularity Hub writes "Robots can climb stairs, and they are doing it everywhere you look. 'No big deal' you say, but it really is a big deal. Five to ten years ago, almost nobody was doing it. Now grad students are doing it all by themselves for thesis projects. Check out our review of robots navigating stairs, which includes some awesome videos."

Singularity Hub writes "Robots can climb stairs, and they are doing it everywhere you look. 'No big deal' you say, but it really is a big deal. Five to ten years ago, almost nobody was doing it. Now grad students are doing it all by themselves for thesis projects. Check out our review of robots navigating stairs, which includes some awesome videos."

destinyland writes "AI researcher Ben Goertzel peeks at the new Ray Kurzweil movie (Transcendent Man), and gives it 'two nano-enhanced cyberthumbs way, way up!' But in an exchange with Kurzweil after the screening, Goertzel debates the post-human future, asking whether individuality can survive in a machine-augmented brain. The documentary covers radical futurism, but also includes alternate viewpoints. 'Would I build these machines, if I knew there was a strong chance they would destroy humanity?' asks evolvable hardware researcher Hugo de Garis. His answer? 'Yeah.'" Note, the movie is about Kurzweil and futurism, not by Kurzweil. Update: 05/06 20:57 GMT by T : Note, Singularity Hub has a review up, too.

Singularity Hub writes "MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is pioneering the field of automated farming. During a semester-long experiment, CSAIL's researchers created a laboratory farm: tomato plants in terra cotta pots with artificial turf for grass. The goal of the experiment: to see if these tomatoes could be grown, tended, and harvested by robot caretakers."

Singularity Hub writes "MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is pioneering the field of automated farming. During a semester-long experiment, CSAIL's researchers created a laboratory farm: tomato plants in terra cotta pots with artificial turf for grass. The goal of the experiment: to see if these tomatoes could be grown, tended, and harvested by robot caretakers."

Singularity Hub has a story about the development of technology that will some day allow for the constant, real-time monitoring of your medical status, and they take a look at current technological advances to that end. Quoting: "Did you ever stop to think how silly and also how dangerous it is to live our lives with absolutely no monitoring of our body's medical status? Years from now people will look back and find it unbelievable that heart attacks, strokes, hormone imbalances, sugar levels, and hundreds of other bodily vital signs and malfunctions were not being continuously anticipated and monitored by medical implants. ... The huge amounts of data that would be accumulated from hundreds of thousands of continuously monitored people would be nothing short of a revolution for medical research and analysis. This data could be harvested to understand the minute by minute changes in body chemistry that occur in response to medication, stress, infection, and so on. As an example, the daily fluctuations in hormone levels of hundreds of thousands of individuals could be tracked and charted 24/7 to determine a baseline from which abnormalities and patterns could be extracted. The possibilities are enormous."

Singularity Hub writes "For decades our options for interacting with the digital world have been limited to keyboards, mice, and joysticks. Now with a new generation of exciting new interfaces in the pipeline our interaction with the digital world will be forever changed. Singularity Hub looks at some amazing demonstrations, mostly videos, that showcase new ways of interacting with the digital world." Along similar lines, reader shakuni points out a facial expression-driven user interface reported on News.com for operating, say, an iPhone, explaining "This device is tiny and fits into the ear and measures movements inside the ear due to changes in facial expression and then uses that as input triggers. So [tongue out] starts or stops your iPod Touch; [Wink] rewinds to the last song; and [smile] replays the same song."

Singularity Hub writes "For decades our options for interacting with the digital world have been limited to keyboards, mice, and joysticks. Now with a new generation of exciting new interfaces in the pipeline our interaction with the digital world will be forever changed. Singularity Hub looks at some amazing demonstrations, mostly videos, that showcase new ways of interacting with the digital world." Along similar lines, reader shakuni points out a facial expression-driven user interface reported on News.com for operating, say, an iPhone, explaining "This device is tiny and fits into the ear and measures movements inside the ear due to changes in facial expression and then uses that as input triggers. So [tongue out] starts or stops your iPod Touch; [Wink] rewinds to the last song; and [smile] replays the same song."

Singularity Hub writes "For decades our options for interacting with the digital world have been limited to keyboards, mice, and joysticks. Now with a new generation of exciting new interfaces in the pipeline our interaction with the digital world will be forever changed. Singularity Hub looks at some amazing demonstrations, mostly videos, that showcase new ways of interacting with the digital world." Along similar lines, reader shakuni points out a facial expression-driven user interface reported on News.com for operating, say, an iPhone, explaining "This device is tiny and fits into the ear and measures movements inside the ear due to changes in facial expression and then uses that as input triggers. So [tongue out] starts or stops your iPod Touch; [Wink] rewinds to the last song; and [smile] replays the same song."

Singularity Hub writes "The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life's savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back."

Singularity Hub writes "The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life's savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back."