In The Future, You Could Be Bumping Smartphones Before Bumping Uglies

There’s a fascinating report over at SMH today by Steve Dow talking about Australian geneticist Richard Cotton, who wants to live in a world where each person carries around their genome sequence in their mobile phones. Then, when it comes time for users to think about getting the groove on to procreate, a simple bump of the smartphones will dictate whether or not your offspring could be negatively impacted by your combined faulty genes. Who said romance was dead?

Cotton is head of the Human Variome Project, which is trying to catalogue a list of all genes that cause diseases, in a hope of one day being able to prevent them. His vision for bumping smartphones before bumping uglies was part of a talk at TedX last week.

At the moment, genome sequencing is a very expensive and intense process, and currently out of most people's price range.

It's an interesting idea, but there's a lot to be said about passion and love when it comes to having kids as well, not just a scientific approach to fertility. There's also the inherent security questions that come with carrying around your entire genome sequence on a device you replace on a 24 month contract every couple of years.

[SMH]