You've  likely read about it in the news or seen the words float across your desk: "CRISPR." The word seems to be popping up everywhere these days. From scientific journals to mainstream media outlets, everyone is abuzz with this hot new genome engineering technique and its potential applications.

Nevertheless, while CRISPR is frequently introduced in mainstream media as a more efficient tool over past offerings, very few explanations are given. This article hopes to introduce and explain three popular genome engineering techniques and their respective advantages to non-scientists by using a "constructive" analogy.