Hello friends, I'm very excited to be taking my ideas about brainless cognition and future possibilities for non-neural computing on the road this August! 7/1 - FWB Fest: www.fwbfest.info 7/27 - MUTEK Forum: forum.mutek.org It's a hot slime summer 🦠
Claire L. Evans
@theuniverse.bsky.social
Award-winning Los Angeles-based writer of video games, science articles, weird pop songs and books (in no particular order). See also @blippo.plus & @teamyacht.com! Website: https://clairelevans.com Newsletter: https://clairelevans.substack.com/
there are many small disappointments in this life, but none quite like discovering that gum is just food-grade plastic
One time we brought a six-story, sixty-ton "polyphonoptic" piece of public art back to life for three incredible weekends in Los Angeles. Watch us get excited about it in the latest episode of Artbound on @pbs.org. youtu.be/So7E8jX-bvM
Why We Still Argue About This Sculpture | Artbound | S16 E2
YouTube video by PBS SoCal
youtu.be
This was such a fun and generative conversation! Thanks to all who came out!
@markcmarino.bsky.social · 2w agoPeggy, Art, and I had such a great chat about our new book led by the insightful Claire L Evans! Visitors got to chat with Ant's Javascript version of DOCTOR. Thanks to all who came to Wilshire Online. Inventing ELIZA is in stores now. #ArtificialIntelligence @theuniverse.bsky.social
I was lucky enough to spend a few days at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics recently, observing an interdisciplinary group of scientists as they grappled with the limits of language in the face of biological complexity. My scene report: clairelevans.substack.com/p/report-fro...
Report from Goleta
An account of three days haunting the halls of the Institute for Theoretical Physics.
clairelevans.substack.com
Join us this Sunday at Wilshire Online for a deep dive on ELIZA’s source code and legacy with three of the co-authors of the new book, Inventing ELIZA! RSVP here: luma.com/zlrejcp9 @markcmarino.bsky.social @pweil.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social
Inventing Eliza · Luma
60 years ago, MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created a simple chatbot named ELIZA. Programmed to respond to queries in the style of a Rogerian…
luma.com
WIRED@wired.com · 3w agoIn the 1960s an MIT professor named Joseph Weizenbaum created a chatbot called ELIZA. The conversations people had with it set precedents for the chatbots to come. www.wired.com/story/invent...
My latest piece for @quantamagazine.bsky.social might stir the pot somewhat. It takes on the contentious notion that biological organisms can be considered to possess agency. www.quantamagazine.org/is-life-just...
Is Life Just Different? | Quanta Magazine
The idea of ‘biological agency’ — that life devises its own goals and behaves accordingly — complicates our understanding of what it means to be alive. But does it serve a scientific purpose?
quantamagazine.org
60 years ago, MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created a chatbot named ELIZA. Programmed to respond in the style of a Rogerian psychotherapist, it proved uncannily absorbing—to the point that Weizenbaum, alarmed by how easily people confided in a computer program, became the first AI critic.
You think you’re following biology closely and then they go ahead and make a synthetic cell and name it after a potato
Carl Zimmer@carlzimmer.com · last mo.Meet SpudCell, a synthetic cell made from lifeless ingredients that feeds, grows, divides, and experiences selection. If it doesn't have all the hallmarks of life, it has a lot! Here's my story. Gift link: nyti.ms/4vCbTih
I sure picked a weird time to start watching The West Wing
Popped onto the @quantamagazine.bsky.social podcast to chat with @pateljournalist.bsky.social about my “just the right level of unhinged” story about trained worms and the weird science of memory transfers: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...
Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?
Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · June 30 · 32m
podcasts.apple.com
Imagine a world where memory is edible. Think “piano lesson pills” and “professor burgers.” In the 70s, a series of strange worm experiments made it seem possible. Tune in to The Quanta Podcast with @theuniverse.bsky.social: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...
Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?
Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · June 30 · 32m
podcasts.apple.com
In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1983, the octogenarian geneticist Barbara McClintock asked the question, “What does a cell know of itself?” Forty years later, scientists are realizing that the answer might be: Much more than we thought. www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-a-c...
New video on @drmichaellevin.bsky.social's research into intelligent systems- "We are oblivious to all kinds of minds that are not like ours... You almost always win and discover something new by... [assuming] higher levels [of intelligence] until proven otherwise." www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-HD...
What If Intelligence Doesn't Need a Brain?
YouTube video by Quanta Magazine
youtube.com
It was surreal just being at Apple Park during #WWDC26, but what an incredible cherry on top to have @blippo.plus honored as a finalist in the Apple Design Awards! To go from working in a vacuum for years to having our weirdo alien TV service honored at the highest level is truly special. 🙏📡❤️
just got served an Instagram reel about "upcyling" a cucumber seed into a cucumber plant. What are we even doing
My @quantamagazine.bsky.social story about the history of worm memory transfers is a @longreads.com editor’s pick this week! “What happened? Claire L. Evans checks in with the scientists who are trying to figure that out, her usual curiosity and low-key wit in tow.” longreads.com/2026/06/08/q...
Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? - Longreads
"In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation."
longreads.com
Planarian worms' regenerative abilities make them effectively “immortal under the edge of the knife.” This begs the question: When you chop a worm in half, do both halves remember? @theuniverse.bsky.social goes down a rabbit hole — erm, worm hole — to find out www.quantamagazine.org/are-memories...
Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? | Quanta Magazine
In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation. Columnist Claire L. Evans follows the neuroscientists who attempted to recapture the magic.
quantamagazine.org
For a new essay series, @quantamagazine.bsky.social invited me to follow my reporting bliss, and so naturally I went deep on 1960s cannibal worm memory transfers: www.quantamagazine.org/are-memories...
Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? | Quanta Magazine
In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation. Columnist Claire L. Evans follows the neuroscientists who attempted to recapture the magic.
quantamagazine.org
In the 60s, an eccentric behavioral psychologist named James McConnell pureed a bunch of worms and fed them to other worms. For years after, he claimed that the cannibal worms learned the ground-up worms’ memories. Could he have been… right? www.quantamagazine.org/are-memories...
Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? | Quanta Magazine
In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation. Columnist Claire L. Evans follows the neuroscientists who attempted to recapture the magic.
quantamagazine.org
My latest! I promise this story has everything: cannibalism, memory transfers, generational scientific controversy, unbelievable 60s worm cartoons—even the Unabomber makes a brief appearance.
Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 2mo agoIn the 60s, an eccentric behavioral psychologist named James McConnell pureed a bunch of worms and fed them to other worms. For years after, he claimed that the cannibal worms learned the ground-up worms’ memories. Could he have been… right? www.quantamagazine.org/are-memories...
In honor of our Apple Design Award nomination we wanted to share some ‘lil details of Blippo’s design we love. Blippo+ was designed by @teamyacht.com (w/ help from Femtofax & CUBIS! designer @theuniverse.bsky.social) w/ contributing design and implementation by developer @marklacroix.bsky.social.
In these times of imminent collapse, we choose to hang out in semi-abandoned buildings and build stuff with our friends for all to enjoy. Won’t you join us? open.substack.com/pub/yacht/p/...
Spring Scene-ing
A YACHT scene report: Eve Babitz redux, more award nods, Clip Art. Whatever Next?!
open.substack.com
We’re playing two songs we wrote about Eve Babitz at The Huntington next week. www.huntington.org/event/page-r...
We're fully flipped that @blippo.plus is a finalist in the most prestigious app design awards on Earth: The Apple Design Awards! We labored over every wonky pixel with love and it's wonderful to receive this recognition. #WWDC developer.apple.com/design/awards/
