Psychic Snail Sex Couldn’t Replace the Telegraph, But One Frenchman Sure Tried

…wait, what?

Benoît and Biat had determined that snails, once mated, remained not only monogamous but, through the exchange of “sympathetic fluids,” bound in a lifelong telepathic bond. Poke a snail with an electrical current in one location, they decided, and its partner, however distant, would react in kind as a result of a phenomenon they termed “escargotic commotion.” By placing a letter next to each snail, this evolutionary loophole could be exploited to transmit messages at the speed of thought, across any distance.

SCIENCE*

* Not really.

Abigail Nussbaum has a roundup of the curiously muted critiques of Captain America: Civil War.

Suburbs in the Sky: High‑rise commission flats and the Melbourne imagination – a little piece on gentrification and class in Melbourne’s inner north

THE GREATEST ARTICLE ON MEDIUM EVER: I Am A Cyclist, And I Am Here To Fuck You Up

Here’s how I’m doing it: I am squeezing between your passenger side door and the curb. I am riding a hill slower than you would like me to. I am taking a second to gain momentum at the stop sign. I am doing all of this on purpose, to make you hit me, so you will be late again and it will be my fault. That is my goal, dream, purpose, the thing for which I was thrust from the womb and into this blinding sunlit world. I will only be happy when my bones are ground to dust in the road and my flesh has adhered to the asphalt and you are late for your 9:00 Meeting with the Board.

GLORIOUS, thanks to Friend of No Award Rivqa for making sure Steph saw this very important article.

OMG: Astronomers crack the secret of this gorgeous poem by Sappho

This is a super interesting piece on a state of transience enforced by our government: Noncitizens Down Under: How Migrant Belonging is Changing in a Nation of Immigrants

Plagiarism in the productivity community (I LOVE THE INTERNET): The Case of the Plagiarizing Productivity Pundit

The day we discovered our parents were Russian spies — this one’s for you, fellow Americans  fans!

There’s a protest happening right now in Melbourne’s City Square, some updates:

Homeless people camp out in Melbourne’s city square

Conversations with Melbourne’s homeless protesters

Those occupying the space were happy to chat; that is, once I’d assured them that I don’t work for the Herald Sun. They explained that it was an article published in that paper, making unfair and sweeping accusations against Melbourne’s homeless for being aggressive, that was the catalyst for their decision to occupy the Square.

They’re tired of not being respected — a word that came up over and over with everyone I spoke to — as if, because they’re homeless, they have no right to it.

Homeless protesters vow to continue demonstration after authorities break up camp in Melbourne’s CBD