ideasthesia

Sign in Subscribe

Ryan Collison

I write about cool science and share it here.

EROI: The Energy Economics of Collapse

EROI: The Energy Economics of Collapse

Every civilization runs on an energy surplus. EROI — the ratio of energy harvested to energy spent harvesting — sets the ceiling on how complex a society can get. When that ratio falls, history suggests what follows.

Jared Diamond: Why Societies Choose to Fail

Jared Diamond: Why Societies Choose to Fail

Jared Diamond studied twelve collapsed civilizations and found a consistent pattern: environmental degradation, climate shift, hostile neighbors, trade collapse, and — crucially — political choices that made decline irreversible.

The CRISPR Babies: When He Jiankui Edited the Human Germline

The CRISPR Babies: When He Jiankui Edited the Human Germline

In 2018, He Jiankui announced the world's first gene-edited babies. The scientific community was horrified—not because it was impossible, but because he did it anyway, before the ethics had been worked out.

Base Editing and Prime Editing: Beyond Cut and Paste

Base Editing and Prime Editing: Beyond Cut and Paste

CRISPR cuts. Base editing and prime editing don't—they chemically rewrite individual DNA letters without breaking the double helix. David Liu's tools represent a quieter, more precise revolution in gene editing.

CRISPR: The Gene Editing Revolution

CRISPR: The Gene Editing Revolution

CRISPR-Cas9 didn't come from a lab — it came from bacteria's billion-year immune war against viruses. Repurposed as a gene-editing tool, it can now cut and splice any genome with a precision that would have seemed impossible a decade ago.

The CRISPR Revolution

The CRISPR Revolution

CRISPR isn't a futuristic dream — it's already curing sickle cell disease. Understanding the bacterial immune logic behind the tool makes the revolution feel even more improbable and inevitable.

Off-Target Effects: When CRISPR Cuts in the Wrong Place

Off-Target Effects: When CRISPR Cuts in the Wrong Place

CRISPR is precise, but not perfect. Off-target cuts — edits landing in the wrong part of the genome — are the central safety challenge standing between CRISPR and widespread clinical use.