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O'Connell Street in Sydney is alpha territory. Queuing in the immaculate lift lobbies of the office towers near Circular Quay, where the worlds of law, politics and medicine intersect, are men and women who have risen to the top on any combination of ability, drive and good fortune.
A few floors up, a group of scientists is trying to strip some of the uncertainty out of individual success. Under a microscope is a five-day human embryo that has been punctured two days earlier to allow a few of its hundred or so cells to spill outside their protective shell.
Steven McArthur, a scientist who works for Sydney IVF, manipulates the tiny embryo, using a syringe less than half a hair's thickness. When it is correctly positioned, he sucks on a tube and applies a blast of infrared light to separate four cells from the central mass that might - if this embryo passes muster - become a baby.
The competition to propel one's child towards the top of the heap is no longer confined to the HSC. The high beam...