bioephemera
a blog about the intersection of science, art, and culture by Jessica Palmer, PhD
Profile
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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Recent Posts
- Goodbye to Scienceblogs
- SpaceChem!
- Mechanical butterfly, circa 1911
- Pseudonymity: Five Reasons the New Scienceblogs/NG Policy is Misguided
- Seeing the invisible? There's an app for that
- Kate MacDowell: bloodless bodies
- Helping Vermont
- Glass acorns
- Greg Dunn's golden neurons
- Window Shopping
bioephemeral sampler
- Anamorphic Skulls
- Art vs. Science Part 2: You want raw data? You can't handle raw data
- Taking Darwin's Name in Vain
- Wombs, Waxes, and Wonder Cabinets
- The Fossils of SoHo
- Gas Works Park
- God is More than a Flying Brain
Categories
- Artists & Art
- Biology
- Blogosphere
- Book Reviews
- Books & Essays
- Cephalopodmania
- Citizen Science
- Conspicuous consumption
- DC
- Dataviz
- Department of the Drama
- Design
- Destinations
- Education
- Ephemera
- Events
- Film, Video & Music
- Frivolity
- Gender Issues
- Health
- History of Science
- Journalism
- Littademia
- Love
- Maps
- Medical Illustration and History
- Museum Lust
- My Artwork
- Neuroscience
- Nonacademic Careers
- Photography
- Poetry
- Random Acts of Altruism
- Retrotechnology and steampunk
- Science
- Science in Advertising
- Science in Culture & Policy
- Wearables
- Web 2.0, New Media, and Gadgets
- Wonder Cabinets
- Words
- Yikes!
Archives
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
Blogroll
- Wonderkammer
- Bibliodyssey
- Cabinet of Wonders
- Curious Expeditions
- Mapping the Marvellous
- Morbid Anatomy
- Street Anatomy
- Science
- Adventures in Ethics and Science
- Armed With Science
- Beagle Project
- Biocurious
- Biology in Science Fiction
- Cocktail Party Physics
- Code For Life
- Comrade Physioprof
- Cosmic Variance
- Culturing Science
- Deep Sea News
- Dendroica, a DC Birding Blog
- DrugMonkey
- Evilutionary Biologist
- Female Science Professor
- The Intersection
- Genetic Future
- Tom Levinson's Inverse Square Blog
- It's a Micro World
- Laelaps
- Medical Humanities Blog
- Mind Hacks
- Neurocritic
- Neuroskeptic
- Neurophilosophy
- Neurotopia
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
- Omics! Omics!
- Pharyngula
- Scicurious
- Sciencegeekgirl
- Scientific Activist
- SCQ
- Terra Sigillata
- The Last Word on Nothing
- Thus Spake Zuska
- Twisted Physics
- Weird Bug Lady
- White Coat Underground
- Zooillogix
- Art, Sciart, Design, Ephemera
- 50 Watts
- Agence Eureka
- BLDGBLOG
- Brad Blogspeed
- Daily Dose of Imagery
- Dream Tree
- Edward Winkleman
- E-L-I-S-E
- Erratic Phenomena
- Fernando Vicente
- feuilleton
- Found in Mom's Basement
- Hungry Hyaena
- Jark and Mason
- NextNature
- homonculus
- Party Like An Art Star
- Phantasmaphile
- Universe
- Wunderkammer: Journal of Environmental Art
- Scientific/Medical Art & Natural History
- A Repository for Bottled Monsters
- Biomedicine on Display
- coelecanth diaries
- Drawing the MotMot
- Hairy Museum
- Rigor Vitae
- SaCrIt
- Somatosphere
- The Flying Trilobite
- Zymoglyphic Curators Blog
- Web 2.0, Media and Dataviz
- Berkman Center
- Columbia Journalism Review
- Flowing Data
- Future of the Internet
- Infosthetics
- Middle Savagery
- Nieman Journalism Lab
- Visual Complexity
- Books, Essays, Language
- 3 Quarks Daily
- Blog of a Bookslut
- "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
- Bookn3rd
- Cabinet Magazine
- Cataloguer's Desk
- Collision Detection
- The Edge
- In The Middle
- Language Hat
- Language Log
- Making Light
- Nanopublic
- Name Inspector
- Poetry Daily
- Ptak Science Books
- Rag and Bone Blog
- Science Musings
- The Worlds Fair
- Law
- The Becker-Posner Blog
- Genomics Law Blog
- JOLT digest
- Lawgeek
- Neuroethics and Law Blog
- Patent Baristas
- SCOTUSblog
- The Situationist
- Steampunk & Alt Culture
- Boing Boing
- Brass Goggles
- Coilhouse
- Hollister Hovey
- Laughing Squid
- Monster Brains
- Points of View
- Archaeoporn
- Blunt Instrument
- Crooked Timber
- Dandelion Diva
- Diary of a Mad Natural Historian
- Fashion for Nerds
- The Greatest & Best Website
- Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog
- Letters From the Inquisition
- Multilocus
- Say What?!
- She Walks Softly
- Via Negativa
- Witless Wanderer
- Miscellaneous
- DCist
- Dream Anatomy
- Haute Macabre
- Photoshop Disasters
- Sociological Images
- Wordie
- My Life in Stick Figures
- xkcd
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.
