Personal Genomics Firm 23andMe Patents Designer Baby System

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 3, 2013 @04:53AM from the not-creepy-at-all dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Consumer genomics company 23andMe has developed a system for helping prospective parents choose the traits of their offspring, from disease risk to hair color. The patent — number 8543339, "Gamete donor selection based on genetic calculations" — describes a technology that would take a customer's preferences for a child's traits, compute the likely genomic outcomes of combinations between a customer's sperm or egg and other people's sex cells, and describe which potential reproductive matches would most likely produce the desired baby."

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Dating service to come? by nitzmahone · 2013-10-03 04:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hmm, sounds like the logical next step is a dating service to match those traits. Who's doing the cyber-squatting for 23harmony.com and eugenicsmingle.com?
1. Re:Dating service to come? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-03 17:36 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I took one of the (free) tests to evaulate my suitability for MENSA (I was curious).
  I received a letter back from them informing me that I was probably in the top two percentile as far as IQ scores went, but to confirm they'd need me to sit a more exacting test, which would only set me back £150.
  At that point I decided to use my superior intelligence to spend the money on beer instead.