Cutting to the core of how 3D structure shapes gene activity
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Jul-2025 02:11 ET (12-Jul-2025 06:11 GMT/UTC)
In biology textbooks and beyond, the human genome and DNA therein typically are taught in only one dimension. While it can be helpful for learners to begin with the linear presentation of how stretches of DNA form genes, this oversimplification undersells the significance of the genome’s 3D structure. Problems with this 3D structure are associated with many diseases including developmental disorders and cancer.
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys and colleagues in Hong Kong published findings June 27, 2025, in Genome Biology demonstrating a new approach for better understanding the human genome’s 3D structure and its influence.A mystery interstellar object discovered last week is likely to be the oldest comet ever seen – possibly predating our solar system by more than three billion years, researchers say. The "water ice-rich" visitor, named 3I/ATLAS, is only the third known object from beyond our solar system ever spotted in our cosmic neighbourhood and the first to reach us from a completely different region of our Milky Way galaxy. It could be more than seven billion years old, according to University of Oxford astronomer Matthew Hopkins – who is discussing his findings at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting 2025 in Durham – and may be the most remarkable interstellar visitor yet.
The Milky Way could have many more satellite galaxies than scientists have previously been able to predict or observe, according to new research.
A research paper by scientists at The Chinese University of Hong Kong proposed a 3D radar-based control scheme that realizes the navigated locomotion of microswimmers in 3D space with multiple static and dynamic obstacles. The new research paper, published on Jun. 2 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, presented a 3D hierarchical radar with a motion sphere and a detection sphere is firstly developed. Using the radar-based avoidance approach, the desired motion direction for the microswimmer to avoid obstacles can be obtained, and the coarse-to-fine search is used to decrease the computational load of the algorithm. Three navigation modes of the microswimmer in 3D space with dynamic conditions are realized by the radar-based navigation strategy that combines the global path planning algorithm and the radar-based avoidance approach.