Delicious Hippopotami (Smithsonian Magazine)
by Shoshi Parks
Facing a shortage of cheap meat in the early twentieth century, a few government officials proposed a radical solution: hippo farming. It’s probably for the best that “lake cow bacon” never caught on.

The Amazing Flying Fly (Vox)
by Benji Jones
Flies are much more than pests that spoil our cookouts. Some species saw off ants’ heads. Some live their lives in bats’ fir. And some are responsible for the fact that we have chocolate.

Entertaining Nonsenses in Medieval England (The Guardian)
by Sarah Shaffi
A newly discovered manuscript offers a rare glimpse into the extremely silly stories that medieval minstrels used to entertain their audiences.

Uncovering Queer Love Stories (Literary Hub)
by Amelia Possanza
The historical stories of women who loved women are rarely clear in archival material. Discovering who they were—or even who they might have been—takes some serious detective work.

What Assisted Dying Debates Miss (Undark)
by Anna Magdalena Elsner and Jordan McCullough
Like many other countries, France is debating assisted dying. But reducing the conversation to choices about how to die obscures bigger questions about what people’s last days should look like.

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