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bioephemera

a blog about the intersection of science, art, and culture by Jessica Palmer, PhD

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Jessica Palmer has a PhD in Molecular Biology and has been blogging about the intersection of art and biology since 2006.

read the first BioE post.

The contents of this blog are the personal opinions of the author, independent of any organizations with which she is affiliated, and should not be construed as professional advice.

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About BioE


bioephemera is what Lewis Carroll calls a "portmanteau" word. I wanted a name that was both scientific and whimsical, because I saw my blog as a balance between those two impulses. "Bio" was easy – I’m a biologist – and I settled on "ephemera" because it captured something fundamental about the transient, always-changing nature of a blog.


For me, the word "ephemeral" draws a lot of significant ideas together: it describes records like diaries or almanacs, the precursors of blogs; cultural artifacts like posters and advertisements; and short-lived species, like insects, that figure prominently in my artwork.


Importantly, "ephemeral" doesn't mean trivial. From an evolutionary perspective, not only individual organisms, but entire species are ephemeral. There’s a lot of wonderful ephemeral art and design that will never make it into a museum’s permanent collection, from ads to T-shirts to graffiti to digital art. The art ecosystem, like the biological ecosystem, the sprawling internet, and even science itself, is always changing and being redefined. The word “bioephemera” reflects that dynamic.


BioE moved to Scienceblogs.com in February 2008 and was hosted at Scienceblogs.com through September 2011. BioE is now back at its original home, http://www.bioephemera.com.

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