Andrew Abbott

Our world is changing. The powerhouse of human advancement in the last century has brought us plenty of modern conveniences and safeguards. Travel that takes hours instead of days, medical care that has increased the average human lifespan by decades, digital connections that have made reams of information accessible with a few keystrokes. But in…

Rome was the superpower of the first and second centuries. But by the third century, this mightiest of empires was starting to crumble. The fall of this superpower wasn’t the result of an all-out invasion, a disease, disaster, or internal uprising. Many different factors took their toll as Rome declined. But one of the biggest…

I’m sure you’ve had the same experience recently. The screen flashes up, you click on the news link, and there it pops up, front-and-center amid the headlines, “CORONAVIRUS.” Every news page seems to be giving special coverage to this latest viral illness that has been popping up all around the globe. A scare this big…

The smoke was saturating the chamber. Each of the desperate astronauts were working to isolate the source of the flames and squelch the fire. But that’s when the once speedily synced team hit a roadblock. The fire in the international space station had been identified, but one set of astronauts wanted to retreat into an…

The fiery redness surrounding the hunched silhouette could almost be felt. The infernal glow was so intense that the only other visible objects were black, like they had already been charred by the flames. I was overwhelmed. How could such intensity be captured with just a camera lens? This photo was spellbinding. But the story…

Radiation doesn’t wait to be invited. It’s influence can seem negligible or highly dangerous depending on the type of radiation and the amount. But the radiation that this article talked about was definitely the dangerous variety. That’s obvious enough based on the location, since the site was bathed in left over radiation from the disastrous…

Who hasn’t felt the exhilaration of a looking up into a bough of graceful red autumn leaves? I’ve enjoyed this sight several times this Fall season already. There are few sights that bring a sense of refreshing seasonality like Autumn leaves do. But just recently I learned that this feeling of abundance at Fall has…

Wind is definitely a fickle, yet powerful thing. Anyone who has watched a kite whipping back and forth violently on a blustery day can see that. But despite the fickle, disturbing power of wind, there are still some hardy souls who willingly surrender their course to the wind each year as part of a harrowing…

There he was, a heavily suited man with two jet engines strapped to his feet, soaring gracefully over the water. You may think that this scene must come from a science fiction flick, but it actually was a real new story reporting a real-life event—the first man to fly across the English Channel wearing a…