A new study found that the sea anemone, a member of the Cnidarian phylum, uses bilaterian-like techniques to form its body. This suggests that these techniques likely evolved before these two phyla separated evolutionarily some 600 to 700 million years ago, though it can't be ruled out that these techniques evolved independently. Local inhibition from an inhibitor named Chordin (which can also act as a shuttle) along with BMP shuttling creates gradients of BMP in the body. When these levels are their lowest, for example, the body knows to form the central nervous system. This is how bilaterians form the body’s layout from back to body.