So how did this one slip in under the radar? The Times reckons that researchers at Cornell University not only created the world’s first genetically engineered human embryo, but also that they presented it at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s conference last year.

One wonders how the ravening press pack, always on the lookout for a controversial story, managed to miss one that hit two of the biggest news buttons — GM and human embryology.

The Times article quotes one critic calling it “the first step on the road that will lead to the nightmare of designer babies”, while perhaps more even-handed commentators will point out that all they did was introduce a gene for green fluorescent protein (a standard proof of principle when doing transgenic work), and that the embryo was allowed to live for no more than five days.

This kind of work will explicitly be made legal under Britain’s new draft laws which are currently being debated in parliament. Ultimately, some researchers hope that, instead of just making glowing green embryos, gene modification could be used to imbue stem-cell lines with faulty genes that characterize a host of genetic diseases — thus allowing biomed experts to get a better handle on how cells behave when they have such mutations.

Wired has picked up the baton and is now asking readers to debate the ethical merits (or otherwise) of the advance, under the strapline “Advance or abomination?”, which just shows what an emotive issue this is.