Art in Western civilization has become a commodity that is fixed to walls and viewed through the eyes. In fact, most museums and galleries post “Do not touch” signs dissuading audiences from partaking in anything but the visual aspects of art. Yet art production is something that is inherently tactile; it involves engaging with art media such as paint and brush or clay that is molded by the human hand.1 Compounded by the “Do not touch” attitude is the taboo in (...) society that draws people away from sensuality, especially touch. Yet touch is a natural way of exploring the world and, according to many researchers, a natural and important way of exploring art as well.2 There are many historical examples of art that have .. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role of the interchromatin compartment (IC) in shaping nuclear landscapes. The IC is connected with nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) and harbors splicing speckles and nuclear bodies. It is postulated that the IC provides routes for imported transcription factors to target sites, for export routes of mRNA as ribonucleoproteins toward NPCs, as well as for the intranuclear passage of regulatory RNAs from sites of transcription to remote functional sites (IC hypothesis). IC channels are lined by less‐compacted (...) euchromatin, called the perichromatin region (PR). The PR and IC together form the active nuclear compartment (ANC). The ANC is co‐aligned with the inactive nuclear compartment (INC), comprising more compacted heterochromatin. It is postulated that the INC is accessible for individual transcription factors, but inaccessible for larger macromolecular aggregates (limited accessibility hypothesis). This functional nuclear organization depends on still unexplored movements of genes and regulatory sequences between the two compartments. (shrink)