[Hail Spode]

Fascinating stuff. I am a little perplexed at their contentions on how this sheds light on evolution of animals as the researchers claim. The article says "The researchers designed RNA molecules". Further, the description of the Hox and Cnox gene controls remind one of the check boxes on the tabs of Windows software. Are the scientists saying that the whole system was there "from the beginning"? If so, it is like they have just learned how to change screen savers and using it as evidence that Windows code wrote itself.

[JasonC]

They've found the code that regulates body plans. Been known for a little while, but the variety already present this early is relatively recent. Was an article about it in Nature (or Science) recently, made the cover. The big deal is that these critters predate the Cambrian explosion by about 100 million years. Meaning all the code for body type variety was there before that took off (nearly all existing body plans appear for the first time in the Cambrian explosion, in a relatively short space of time). We are getting close to understanding what actually happened then, and really led to most of the variety of life seen on earth. At a mechanism level, not a general hand waving principle.