The Natural Fallacy in a Post-Truth era: A perspective on the natural sciences' permeability to values.

The natural sciences are not immune to societal values and beliefs. Understanding the interference of these factors is key to protect science from becoming a servant to opportunistic interests.

Multi-enhancer transcriptional hubs confer phenotypic robustness.

We previously showed in embryos that low-affinity Ultrabithorax (Ubx)-responsive () enhancers drive expression using localized transcriptional environments and that active enhancers on different chromosomes tended to colocalize (Tsai et al., 2017). Here, we test the hypothesis that these multi-enhancer 'hubs' improve phenotypic resilience to stress by buffering against decreases in transcription factor concentrations and transcriptional output.

Nuclear microenvironments modulate transcription from low-affinity enhancers.

Transcription factors bind low-affinity DNA sequences for only short durations. It is not clear how brief, low-affinity interactions can drive efficient transcription. Here, we report that the transcription factor Ultrabithorax (Ubx) utilizes low-affinity binding sites in the () locus and related enhancers in nuclear microenvironments of high Ubx concentrations.