Popular science pieces I’ve written about my research
- Seeing Stars: Into the World of Echinoderm Vision [Friday Harbor Labs Tide Bite Newsletter - August 2026]
Press related to brittle star learning
Notar, JC, Go, M, and Johnsen, S. (2023) Learning without a brain: Classical conditioning in the ophiuroid Ophiocoma echinata. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 77:126, doi.org/10.1007/s00265-023-03402-x
- Brainless: Lifeforms without brains are giving humanity a lesson in what it means to learn [Discover Magazine, Summer 2026 Print Issue, p. 58-64]
- Cognition in brainless organisms is redefining what it means to learn [The Transmitter]
- Biologists Find Brainless Brittle Stars Can Learn—But We ‘Don’t Know’ How [Newsweek]
- No brain, no problem. Brittle stars can still learn through experience [ZME Science]
- This Animal Has No Head Or Brain But Can Still Learn [IFLScience]
- Brittle stars have no brain but still manage to learn [Earth.com]
- Brittle Stars Can Learn Just Fine – Even Without a Brain [Duke Today]