Scientific data can be beautiful. An example where the data itself have a particularly striking appearance even before any scientific meaning has been ascribed is the so-called “Hi-C” chromatin interaction map with its distinct checker-board patterns which when combined with simulations have revealed the complex structure of the folded genome. Here, we describe an art-science collaboration which arose through combining local and global inter-personal connections, and which illustrates the equivalent short- and long-range contacts within folded genomes.
Griffiths et al. (2026) studied this question.