D. cactiformis is described as an ‘armoured’ lobopodian from the Chengjiang fossil Lagerstätte (Cambrian Stage 3), Yunnan, southwestern China, remarkable for possessing robust and probably sclerotized appendages, with what appear to be articulated elements.
Evidence is argued that evidence points towards vetulicolians being members of the stem-group deuterostomes; a group best known as the chordates but also including the ambulacrarians (echinoderms, hemichordates), and xenoturbellids.
It is demonstrated that X. sinica possessed a polypoid body, a blind gastric cavity partitioned by septum-like structures, a holdfast that contained an additional cavity functioning as a hydroskeleton, a basal pit used for anchorage, and a radial whorl of feather-like tentacles for ciliary suspension feeding.
New exceptionally preserved specimens show that the pedicle of Longtancunella cannot be considered homologous with the pedicles in crown Rhyncho-nelliformea or Linguliformea, and is proposed to represent a soft-shelled stemrhynchonelliform brachiopod with chileate features, thus demonstrating for the first timethat the ch Chileate-like umbonal perforation functions as a pedicle opening.
Silybin was effective in preventing the MCD-induced increases in hepatic steatosis, fibrosis and inflammation in NASH mice, and showed that the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) signaling pathway played important roles in the silybin-derived antioxidant effect.
It is suggested that a key step in deuterostome evolution was the development of lateral openings that subsequently were co-opted as pharyngeal gills in Saccorhytus, which may help to explain the major gap between divergence times seen in the fossil record and estimates based on molecular clocks.
Antennacanthopodia gracilis new genus and species is described and interpreted here as an “unarmoured” lobopodian from the Chengjiang fossil Lagerstätte (Early Cambrian, ∼520 Ma), Yunnan, southwestern China, furthers the understanding of early lobopODian diversification.
New material of the early Cambrian lobopodian Onychodictyon ferox from southern China is described, which reveals hitherto unknown head structures, including a proboscis with a terminal mouth, an anterior arcuate sclerite, a pair of ocellus-like eyes and branched, antenniform appendages associated with this ocular segment.