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Spheroidal microfossils from the Ediacaran Doushantuo phosphorites show clear signs of cell differentiation, programmed cell death, and separation between soma and germline, and seem to represent a hitherto unknown experiment in multicellular life like nothing on Earth today.

Fossils found in rocks of the Ediacaran period in Australia have been previously characterized as early marine organisms. But a report suggests that these rocks are fossilized soils. So did some of these Ediacaran organisms in fact live on land, like lichens? A palaeontologist and a geologist weigh up the evidence. See Letter p.89

Sponge animals likely originated in the Precambrian, but their early spicular fossils are ambiguous. Here, Tang et al. report a new Cambrian sponge taxon with weakly biomineralized spicules and suggest that the poor Precambrian record may reflect the later evolution of biomineralization.

Molar tooth structures are common in early- to mid-Proterozoic carbonates but extremely rare in rocks younger than 750 Ma. Here, the authors show molar tooth carbonate formation is related to benthic methane fluxes.

Dissolved oxygen levels in the Proterozoic surface ocean decreased from the Equator towards the mid–high latitudes, the opposite of the modern latitudinal gradient, according to a compilation of I/Ca proxy records and Earth system modelling.

Filamentous macrofossils from the one-billion-year-old Nanfen Formation of northern China are interpreted as a new species of early multicellular green algae.

SOX2 is known to be oncogenic in squamous cell carcinomas. Here, the authors demonstrate that SOX2 promotes global histone acetylation and reprograms lipid metabolism in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells.

Cross-hatch impressions from Ediacaran rocks in China are interpreted as having been left by a crown-group sponge fossil, Helicolocellus cantori gen. et sp. nov., characterized by an organic latticework skeleton.

Using Hg isotopes, the authors find that repeated invasion of toxic, H₂S-rich water into the marine photic zone of the Ediacaran ocean may have inhibited the rise of oxygen and delayed the expansion of early animals.

Yilingia spiciformis, a bilaterian dating to the Ediacaran period, is described from body fossils associated with trails produced by the animal, shedding light on the origins of segmentation and motility in bilaterian animals.

When did macroscopic, complex life forms first appear in the fossil record? This study presents spectacular fossils of seaweed-like forms from the approximately 600-million-year-old early Ediacaran of China, a time when the Earth had only just recovered from the worldwide Marinoan glaciation.

Analyses of newly discovered specimens of the early Cambrian microscopic animal Saccorhytus coronarius support its taxonomic classification in total-group Ecdysozoa.

Fungi may have evolved up to 2.4 billion years ago, but it is unclear when they first colonized land. Here Gan and colleagues report filamentous Ediacaran microfossils from South China that may represent early terrestrial fungi.

Evolutionary relationships among green plants are unresolved and, in particular, the phylogenetic position of Prasinodermophyta remains controversial. Here, the authors conduct phylogenomic analyses to resolve relationships within Viridiplantae, suggesting that this group diverged between the Great Oxidation Event and the Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event.

“Ulvophyceae is a remarkably morphologically and ecologically diverse clade of green algae. Here, the authors reconstruct the Ulvophyceae phylogeny, showing that these algae originated earlier than expected and may have influenced biogeochemical cycles at the Mesoproterozoic-Neoproterozoic transition.”

Based on geochemical and paleontological data, this study shows that habitable open-oceans extended to mid-latitude coastal oceans during the waning stage of the Marinoan snowball Earth, offering refugia for benthic photosynthetic eukaryotes

The termination of the Marinoan snowball Earth event marks one of the most drastic transitions in Earth history, but the oceanic response remains unclear. Here, the authors’ integrated analysis demonstrates that the ocean experienced transient but widespread euxinia following this Snowball Earth event.

The preservation of soft tissues during fossilization is the outcome of a race between decay and mineralization. Here the authors show that differential preservation of the Gaojiashan fossil Conotubus hemiannulatuswas influenced by the duration of tissue degradation through bacterial sulfate reduction.

Cancer metastasis is one of the major causes of cancer related deaths and there is an urgent need to find more clinically effective metastasis targeting agents. Here, the authors show that Salmonella YB1 inhibits metastasis in multiple mouse models of cancer through a mechanism dependent on IFN-γ and NK cells.

Natural occurrence of large non-mass-dependent iron isotope fractionation was discovered in sediments of Lake Aha, southwestern China, where the magnetotactic bacteria thrived top centimeters are iron concentration limited in pore water due to abundant manganese (IV) and ongoing sulphate reduction.

An ultra-weak magnetic field from Earth’s core lasting for at least 26 million years may have contributed to Earth’s oxygenation and further diversification of the Ediacaran fauna, according to single-crystal paleointensity data from igneous rocks in South Africa and Brazil.

Carbonaceous compressions of Horodyskia from the Tonian successions reinforce the biogenicity of these macrofossils and indicate that they are among the oldest multicellular and coenocytic macro-organisms.