Articles by Sarah Laskow

Sarah Laskow is a reporter based in New York City who covers environment, energy, and sustainability issues, among other things.

All Articles

  • How to eat ice cream and end an unjust criminal system at the exact same time

    Driving around upstate New York, you see a lot of abandoned dairy farms and a lot of struggling towns with prisons nearby. They’re connected: As milk prices dropped and the state’s dairy industry started suffering, politicians brought prisons upstate as a job-creation programs. Milk Not Jails aims to break that connection by creating economic opportunities […]

    Sarah Laskow Food

  • This weird artificial jellyfish is made from the cells of a rat

    Watch the video below, and consider this: “Genetically, this thing is a rat,” Harvard biophysicist Kit Parker told Nature News. But, we hear you saying, that is not a rat! It’s a jellyfish! Sorta — but it’s made from silicone and the muscle cells of a rat’s heart. When the resulting “medusoid” (“jellyfishy”) creature is […]

    Sarah Laskow Science

  • Book lovers make mini public libraries out of trees

    These hollow-log bookshelves were erected in Berlin a few years back to help encourage the reuse of books. The German team behind the project explains: The project adopts the idea of putting up a bookcase in a public space, in which people could release their used books to be picked up by others. This way […]

    Sarah Laskow Cities

  • Baby gorillas have figured out how to dismantle hunting snares

    In the forests of Rwanda, mountain gorillas sometimes get caught in snares that were intended for game like antelopes. Adult gorillas can often escape; younger ones aren’t always so lucky. But staff at the Karisoke Research Center recently observed young gorillas finding and dismantling the traps before anyone could get caught, reports National Geographic News: […]

    Sarah Laskow Science