The Gastropod Information Superhighway.

Ever wanted to send an e-mail and have it arrive at its destination a few weeks later, the way snailmail does? No, me neither.

But for the sake of argument, say that you did. Imagine, perhaps, that you wanted to invite someone to a special event but didn’t actually want them to come. You know, an “oh, the e-mail arrived late?” get-out. You wouldn’t quite know how to approach the problem, would you? You’d possibly consider using the traditional mail service, perhaps, but even that can be too damn reliable, at times.

Worry ye not! I now have the perfect solution. Send your e-mail using snailmail — no, not that snailmail but, rather, an e-mail service that uses real snails!

The gastropods have been fitted with equipment to allow them to send e-mails on behalf of visitors to a website.

Instead of instantaneous communication, sent messages will travel at 0.03mph (0.05km/h) and could take days, weeks or even months to arrive.

Wonderful, or what? Just when you think the world has got as nutty as it can possibly get, along comes a bunch of students and proves you wrong.