Guest post by Denise Howell

After finishing “Biohack,” I was standing at my Newport Beach yoga studio this morning, surrounded by all the other local businesses dedicated to "perfecting" us, and was struck by just how many ways people might genetically modify their kids if they had the chance, given the expense and extremes we resort to now.

The cosmetics and plastic surgery industries alone are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Think about some of the possibilities:

• Body hair: Straight/conventional women might eliminate everything but insanely long eyelashes and thick but defined brows (people literally tattoo them on now). For men, a reasonable and soft overall sprinkling, with control of excessive chest and back hair. Male facial hair? You'd probably get people who would want the gamut of choices from none to some to specific zones to ZZ Top.

• Permanent makeup: After reading the scene with the 10-year-old girls on stage in Chapter 6, I found myself wondering whether they are actually wearing makeup, or just have had their facial features sculpted and fine-tuned genetically so that it appears so. Sufficient manipulation of the genes for cheekbones, facial skin tone and color variations, eyelashes and brows, lip shape/texture/size/color could all supplant the existing cosmetics industry. (And in chapter 2, the CEO of Birthrights Unlimited talks about the opposition his company would face from incumbents such as the cosmetics industry, the drug companies, the therapy lobby.)
• Head hair: never any gray, never any balding (unless, like the Indian couple, someone *wanted* their child to go bald), specifications as to volume and texture in addition to color.
• Fingernails: Grown to a specified length and shape, and strong as titanium.
• Eyesight: No one would ever need glasses, or perhaps even a long-distance rifle scope, again.
• Hearing: Go to Coachella all you want and leave the earplugs at home.
• Sexual organs and body parts: Consider that men will want to be well-endowed, and women will conversely want their reproductive parts to be small and tight (there are surgeries for this).

Will society want these things if it's a safe and affordable option? You bet. Only time will tell if science gets there and whether there are laws on the books to prevent this.

“Biohack” is currently available on Amazon at a special introductory price.