Last week three-parent babies were back in the headlines as it was announced that eight children (including one set of twins) had been born using this technique and that all were free from clinical signs of mitochondrial disease (though three had ‘higher rates of mitochondrial mutations than expected’).

This was reported as a good news story: healthy children, happy parents, a scientific breakthrough in the United Kingdom, prestige science. I use this last adjective advisedly. The word now refers to what is admired or renowned, but comes from praestigium which originally meant a trick or deceit. The 2006 science fiction film The Prestige recalls the older meaning. Set in the late nineteenth century it involves the obsessive competition between two illusionists seeking to create the perfect magic trick. A prominent theme of the film is the violence that may be hidden beneath an innocent show. A bird disappears into a hat only later to reappear unharmed, except that they are different birds, the first having been killed by a rather nasty device hidden within the hat.

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