The global media is highly concerned about the city's innovative achievements in the qingjiang biota discovery

Academician Shu Degan (second from the left in the first row) team. (Photo courtesy of Northwestern University)

A month ago, science magazine published the latest research results of Zhang Xingliang, Fu Dongjing and others from the early life and environmental innovation research team of Northwest University, "South China Early Cambrian Burgess Shale Fossil Reservoir - Qingjiang Biota", which for the first time announced that the team found a 518 million-year-old Cambrian specific buried soft body fossil bank at the confluence of Qingjiang and Danjiang rivers in Changyang, Yichang, China, and named the Qingjiang biota. In the past month, this breakthrough discovery in the field of evolutionary paleontology has not diminished in the academic community and mainstream media at home and abroad.

Academic celebrities praised the global media for their warm attention

Xinhua All Media Headlines, Xinhua Daily Telegraph Full-page Report, People's Daily Long Story, Guangming Daily Report, CCTV Report, Science News Highlights the Achievement, Nature, BBC, CNN... All have paid keen attention to this achievement. A number of world-renowned paleontologists have given high praise to this research finding. Joanna Wolfe, a paleontologist at Harvard University, said: "Most of the Cambrian fossils are preserved in shelled stones, that is, biological hard bodies, and only this soft body fossil library can give the anatomical characteristics of organisms." The Qingjiang biota is the best of the best softened stone reservoirs. Ross Anderson, a paleontologist at the University of Oxford's College of All Souls, said: "The discovery of a large number of spiny animals will provide evidence to solve the relationship between the underlying taxa of the animal evolution tree, and the Qingjiang biota is the best fossil treasure found so far." John Paterson, a professor at the University of New England in Australia and a paleontologist and expert on Cambrian fossils, said, "The study of animal evolution of the Qingjiang biota will rewrite the textbook, so stay tuned!" ”

The scientific research team of Northwest University has frequently "shaken" the international academic community

Since 1996, when Shu Degan and his assistants first published the paper "Yunnan insect is reinterpreted as the oldest semi-cord animal" in Nature magazine, the early life and environmental innovation research team of Northwest University has published 14 papers in Nature and Science, won the National Natural Science Award twice, and the research results have been selected as "China's Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress" twice, and twice selected as "Top Ten Scientific and Technological Progress of Chinese Universities". This scientific research team in northwest China is legendary, and there will always be new scientific discoveries and scientific research results that shake the international academic community every three to five minutes.

The British "Science Report" has published the research results of Professor Zhang Zhifei's research group Cambrian crowned chakra super-phylum online, and the results reveal the co-ancestral characteristics of mollusk phylum and link animal phylum 530 million years ago. The results of this study are of great scientific significance for understanding the phylogenetic evolution of the archaeopteryx, especially the superphyla of the crested chakra. Zhang Zhifei's discovery of endoceral animals filled the gap of the Cambrian explosion without endoanal animals, and was evaluated as "fulfilling the dream of neo-Darwinism".

In 2012, the team's Professor Liu Jianni discovered the cactus Dian insect in the Chengjiang Fossil Bank, a creature from 520 million years ago that has long spines and a body that is basically the same thickness as its legs, and was later confirmed to be the ancestor of arthropods. The discovery of cactus dianworm solves the problem of the origin of arthropods, the largest dominant taxa on earth, and is a major breakthrough in the field of paleontological research.

As the first doctoral student under the guidance of Academician Shu Degan, Zhang Xingliang's achievements in the Cambrian explosion and the basic frontier of animal phyla have solved many long-standing unsolved scientific problems. In 2016, the "Earth Animal Tree Formation" project chaired by Professor Zhang Xingliang, academician Shu Degan, Professor Liu Jianni, Professor Zhang Zhifei and Professor Han Jian won the second prize of the National Natural Science Award. This year, exactly 20 years have passed since Shudgan founded the Institute of Early Life At Northwestern University.

"I hope the best research work is done by Chinese"

"If you want to talk about luck, maybe a little bit." Talking about the performance of these former students and colleagues today, Academician Shu Degan smiled: "However, we are not speaking with fossils, we are speaking with knowledge."

Behind the "lucky" is the geological hammer in the wild countless times, the running on the mountain road carrying dozens of kilograms of stones, the headache and nausea caused by the observation under the microscope for a long time, the depression of revising the paper over and over again, the frustration of failing scientific research again and again, the countless sleepless nights illuminated by the lights, the loneliness and loneliness of staying in the laboratory on holidays... It is also the dedication and persistence of scientists to the cause and the infinite love for scientific truth. "Not in the fantasy, not in the voice." And only with the attitude of seeking truth, do practical work. "From the discovery of fossils to the final publication of research results, there is often a period of 5 years, 10 years or even longer of learning and research. Before the discovery of the Qingjiang biota, Professor Zhang Xingliang and Associate Professor Fu Dongjing of the research team took the geological map every year and led the team to conduct a nationwide field survey, and south China, north China and even Xinjiang, all areas with Cambrian argillaceous shale, left the team's footprints.

There are 38 phylums in the animal kingdom, 20 live animal phylums and 6 extinct animal phylums have been found during the Cambrian explosion, and 18 live animal phylums have not found fossil representation during the Cambrian explosion. The discovery of new fossil origins is particularly significant, and many new species with strange shapes have been found in the Qingjiang biota. "With the development and deepening of future research work, the Qingjiang biota will surely achieve scientific research results that shocked the world in revealing the major events in the initial formation of animal trees, exploring the earliest evolutionary trajectory of human beings, especially studying the synergistic change relationship between animal trees and the environment." The 73-year-old academician Shu Degan is full of expectations for the team's future research work: "There are still many tasks in front of us that young people need to complete. I hope that the best research work will be done by Chinese. ”

Source: Correspondent Xiong Xiaofen Reporter Zhang Xiao

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