Sarah Laskow
The Atlantic
New York, NY, United States
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Past articles by Sarah:
Our Food System Could Have Been So Different
The story of America’s “lost crops” shows the reign of corn was not inevitable. → Read More
Exploring the Tragic Beauty of Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheets
High above a meltwater lake in Greenland, 3,000 or so feet from the ground, the plane tipped so that Tom Hegen could shoot straight down. The plane circled the lake to find the right angle and the right light, and then did it again. “Up in the air, you have to be very quick,” says Hegen, a photographer based in Germany. Shooting aerial photographs from a plane is akin to trying to capture an… → Read More
Exploring the tragic beauty of Greenland’s melting ice sheets
High above a meltwater lake in Greenland, 3,000 or so feet from the ground, the plane tipped so that Tom Hegen could shoot straight down. The plane circled the lake to find the right angle and the right light, and then did it again → Read More
The impending doom of the largest iceberg anyone’s ever measured
This story starts more than 18 years ago, in March 2000, when a piece of the Ross Ice Shelf broke off and floated free on Antarctic waters. The crack of that iceberg forming filled the ocean with noise. Since scientists started documenting the size of icebergs, they had never seen one larger. → Read More
Melting ice could unleash hazardous waste from abandoned Cold War project
The U.S. military built a hidden base that would bury 600 nuclear missiles under Greenland's ice. Now, it's melting. → Read More
'I'm An American' Radio Show Promoted Inclusion Before World War II
In 1940, on the eve of the United States' entrance into World War II, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Immigration and Naturalization → Read More
A 16th Century Pope Buried His Pet Elephant Under the Vatican
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. In February of 1962, while digg → Read More
The A.D. White Library at Cornell: The Kind of Place Book Lovers Dream About
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. The A.D. White Library, at Cornell University, might be the template from which all dream libraries are made. Three stories tall, it's criss-crossed with walkways decorated with curling metal flourishes and filled with... → Read More
What Are the Pros and Cons of Being a Celebrity Tree?
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. To be recognized as a Great Tree, in New York City, is not just a matter of having the correct heritage or coming from the right family. There's a certain meritocracy and populism... → Read More
Toward a Better Understanding of Awe: What Is It and How Does It Work?
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. Awe is not an everyday emotion. You don't wake up awestruck. A satisfying lunch doesn't leave you filled with awe. Even a great day is unlikely to leave you in a state of... → Read More
Part of the Reason Humans Are Terrible at Spotting Liars: Cultural Differences
This is a universal truth: human beings are terrible at spotting liars. Say you're in a situation with two people, where one is making a statement—it might be true, it might be false—and the other person is trying to determine if that person is lying. The likelihood that you're going to make... → Read More
Dig Into the Most Boring Undertaking Fathomable: Making Tunnels as a Hobby
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. When Leanne Wijnsma digs a tunnel, it needs to be in a public place. She marks the spot where it will begin and the spot where it will end, and she begins. Normally, when... → Read More
The Oldest Message in a Bottle Ever Recovered Was Adrift for More Than 100 Years
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. A few months back, Marianne Winkler and her husband, Horst, were taking a vacation on Amrum, a German island in the North Sea, just south of the border with Denmark. Marianne was walking along... → Read More
In 1919, Eisenhower Took a Disastrous Road Trip That Led to His Support of the Modern Highway
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. Dwight D. Eisenhower, contrary to popular belief, did not build the federal highway system for the sole purpose of evacuating cities in the event of an atomic war. But there was one key military... → Read More
Do Taller Buildings Have to Mean Darker Streets?
How to design a denser city without sacrificing sunlight. → Read More
Even Secret Agents Have to Fill Out Expense Reports
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. In 1961, when a KGB counterintelligence officer showed up at a CIA station in Helsinki, Jeanne Vertefeuille held the keys to the office safe. "Responsibility for office funds was part of my normal... → Read More
The Soviet Military Secret That Could Become Alaska's Most Valuable Crop
Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. Al Poindexter’s front yard in the south-central plain of Alaska has been taken over by a spread of more than 2,000 cell trays, each growing dozens of plants that look “like something you’d... → Read More
Stirring trouble
In the mouth of the Esopus Creek, the Saugerties Lighthouse sits on small circle of stones, on a spit of land that sticks out into the Hudson River. From the old brick house, Patrick Landewe, the lighthouse keeper since 2005, can see the creek—although at this point, where it’s a couple hundred feet wide, it’s a river by most standards—as it runs into the Hudson. Usually, when there’s a storm,… → Read More
The gigging taxpayers of New York
In the winter months, a new ritual has emerged among the millions of workers who make all or part of their money by stringing gigs together. They might have earned money writing freelance articles or driving for Uber, delivering for WunWun or selling prints on Etsy, renting out a bedroom on Airbnb or raising funds on Kickstarter. Sometime in January or February, a 1099 form shows up in their… → Read More
How simulators are changing subway-station design
Transformative platform play? → Read More