Sarah Laskow's User Profile - Atlas Obscura

Sarah Laskow

Former Atlas Obscura staff writer

2015
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Found: A Lost Painting Collection of Florida Wildflowers

An amateur artist captured now-rare flowers in great detail.

November 5, 2018

Voting Booths Were a Radical 19th-Century Reform to Stop Election Fraud

An idea imported from Australia, they helped enable the "secret" part of secret ballots.

November 5, 2018

Exploring the Tragic Beauty of Greenland's Melting Ice Sheets

From above, the textured landscape can be almost abstract.

November 5, 2018

How Did the World's Smallest Flightless Bird Get to Inaccessible Island?

The first scientists to describe the animal thought it might have walked.

November 2, 2018

For Sale: An Invitation to Stephen Hawking’s Cocktail Party for Time Travelers

Please retain for the next thousand years or so.

November 2, 2018

The Soviet Children's Books That Broke the Rules of Propaganda

How folk tales and traditional life snuck into avant-garde kids' books in the 1930s.

November 1, 2018

4 Grave Secrets From New York's Past

In the spirit of Halloween, consider a tour of graveyards, memorials, and other places in touch with the afterlife.

October 30, 2018

loneliest graves

An Underwater Grave Site Was Untouched for 7,000 Years

Once far above sea level, this gravesite is now deep under the ocean.

October 29, 2018

A Fetus Can Turn to Stone in Its Mother's Body and Go Undiscovered for Decades

"Stone babies"—or lithopedions—are incredibly rare.

October 29, 2018

loneliest graves

A Mormon Pioneer's Grave, Marked Only With a Wagon Wheel Rim

Rebecca Winters's grave is one of the few that were marked at all.

October 24, 2018

loneliest graves

The Most Isolated War Grave of the British Commonwealth Is in the Namibian Desert

In 1915, South African forces fought Germans for control of territory in southern Africa.

October 23, 2018

Here Lies E. Coli

There's a bunch of gross stuff, besides human bodies, hiding under graveyards.

October 22, 2018

How Writers Map Their Imaginary Worlds

A new book collects fantastic literary geographies.

October 22, 2018

L.A.'s Most Derided Piece of Public Art Is About to Light Up Again

Reviving the Triforium.

October 18, 2018

What It Takes to Build an Anarchist Desert Town

Slab City might be the "last free place," but that freedom requires work.

October 17, 2018

Found: A Rare Viking Boat Buried in a Flat Field

The whole place was once a monumental graveyard.

October 16, 2018

american revolution

Maps Have the Power to Shape History

A groundbreaking female cartographer charted the evolution of the United States—and the dispossession of Native Americans.

October 15, 2018

Margarine Once Contained a Whole Lot More Whale

And helped launch a corporation now worth more than $40 billion.

October 11, 2018

recursive places

What Do You Call a Moon's Moon?

The inexplicable delight of moon-moons, sub-islands, and other recursive places.

October 10, 2018

In Spanish America, Cartographers Hand-Drew Maps Inspired by Printed Ones

These hybrid productions are unique in mapmaking.

October 9, 2018

Watch Astronauts From the 1970s Geek Out With Gyroscopes

Why are these devices so important to spacecraft?

October 9, 2018

All the Very Bad Ways That Castor Seeds Have Been Used

Not only does it taste gross, but castor oil was used as an instrument of political control for years.

October 4, 2018

The Century-Long Scientific Journey of the Affordable Grocery Store Orchid

Orchids were once considered the world’s most difficult and exotic flowers. So why can you buy one for $12.99 at Trader Joe’s?

October 2, 2018

The Last Woman to Win a Nobel Prize in Physics Did the Work Without Being Paid

Maria Goeppert Mayer was relegated to unpaid and "volunteer" positions for most of her academic career.

October 2, 2018