DURHAM, N.C. -- We humans are fixated on big brains as a proxy for smarts. But headless animals called brittle stars have no brains at all and still manage to learn through experience, new research ...

The sequenced genome of the brittle star revealed unique gene arrangements and provides insights into ancient genes involved in limb regeneration. Sneha Khedkar is an Assistant Editor at The Scientist ...

The paper J. Delroisse et al., “A puzzling homology: A brittle star using a putative cnidarian-type luciferase for bioluminescence,” Open Biology, 7:160300, 2017. Degrees of separation Although the ...

Researchers collected dozens of sea creatures known as brittle stars from Mexico’s Pacific coast between 2011 and 2020, but ...