It gives new meaning to the vulgarity “a piece of tail.” The latest way of divorcing baby-making from the old-fashioned method not only involves no sexual relations, it doesn’t even involve eggs and sperm. At least at first.

Japanese scientists last year coaxed skin cells from mouse tails into becoming eggs. They added sperm and went on to create baby mice. Baby mice that are capable of growing up and, coming full circle, can produce their own baby mice the old-fashioned way. David Cyranoski described the painstaking complex process at Nature News. He notes, because eggs are only half the story, that Chinese scientists have reported making rudimentary mouse sperm in a dish.

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What about the true creation of designer babies? Ethicist/lawyer Hank Greely speculated on that possibility in his book The End of Sex. At Stanford Lawyer he discussed what he calls “Easy PGD” with Greta Lorge. (PGD = prenatal genetic diagnosis, already in use with IVF to eliminate embryos with specific genetic defects.)

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In a couple of decades, Greely predicts, it will be possible to examine and select an embryo not just for a particular genetic disease but also for other traits, ranging from hair color to musical ability to potential temperament.

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Greely concedes that Easy PGD will be mostly available in rich countries, but he also thinks it will be widely available in those countries because it will be free. Preventing the birth of people with genes that increase their risk of serious (and expensive) disease will save health care systems so much money that Easy PGD will be convincingly cost-effective.