Blogger Jessica Palmer appears to be a biologist with a transient nature so it's no wonder she devised a blog for Scienceblogs with a witty title that speaks to her true character. Her blog Bioephemera covers everything from her addiction to insect collecting to double standards in drug education.

Perhaps it speaks to her self-proclaimed abbreviated attention span, which is perfect for a true blogger and scientist who likes to soak up anything and everything in her field.   Somehow, though, she always circles back to her true loves: biology and art.

Animals may not be her #1 passion in life, but she has studied their behavior before. From experience with fruit fly neurons to blogging about hunting animals for sport, Jessica hits us with a strong opinion on a plethora of animal topics.

Tell me about your background in Biology?

I have a PhD in molecular and cellular biology, and a spent a few years teaching college anatomy and physiology. Teaching anatomy lab was great – I got a lot of experience dissecting animals, including humans! Then I decided to move to Washington, DC, to work on science and health policy. So I’m not in the lab any more.

Does any of your background include working with animals, research of animal behavior, intelligence, etc?

I actually studied fruit fly neurons in graduate school, so I don’t have much scientific experience with vertebrate animals. Our family always had pets, though. I had a pet rat as a child, and I think rats are underrated pets – they bite much less than hamsters or gerbils, and my rat at least was very cuddly. 

In addition to the usual household pets, I’ve worked a few biology jobs that involved caring for everything from sea urchins to lungfish. The lungfish in particular was pugnacious; he used to jump out of his tank and try to run away from me. It was eerie – he seemed much smarter than a fish should have been!

Can you liken animal neuroscience to that of humans?

Absolutely. Neuroscience is built on animal models of human physiology and cognition. Animals can teach us a lot about how our own brains work. Thanks to genetics, we have animal models that are helping us understand diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimers – studying animals wouldn’t help with that if we didn’t have very similar brains. There are some things it’s difficult or impractical to study in animals, though. For example, addiction involves cravings and other complex psychological effects that animals probably don’t experience in the same way, and even if they did, they couldn’t describe it to us. So while animal studies of addiction are important, human studies are also necessary. 

You’re also an artist and write quite a bit about art and biology. In this sense, do you think animals can make art? (You wrote a blog post about this topic back in March 2008.)

I don’t think most animals make art, at least not the way I think of art. For human beings, good art should be about more than just self-expression: it’s about putting yourself in the head of another person, thinking about how they will experience the artwork you created, and trying to reach them emotionally. We know that most animals don’t have the kind of self-consciousness necessary to think about things from another individual’s perspective. However, some animals like chimps or dolphins do appear to have that capacity, and if they used it creatively, who knows? Maybe they create art too - and we just don’t understand that’s what they’re doing.

You once wrote a blog post against shooting animals as a sport. Would you consider yourself an animal rights activist or just someone with a strong opinion?

I would not enjoy trophy hunting myself. However, my dad was a hunter, and I don’t have a problem with hunting as a means of population control for animals like deer and elk, if the animal is killed humanely and consumed. So I don’t consider myself an animal rights activist. 

On the other hand, I do think we have a responsibility to treat domestic animals as well as we can, to eliminate unnecessary suffering, and to preserve endangered species when possible. I’m a fan of Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” an eye-opening book about some of the things that are wrong with industrial farming. It suggests some ways that we might make the consumption of animal products healthier for ourselves, the environment, and domestic animals. 

Do you have any pets?

Currently, just a cat. She’s ornery, opinionated, and – according to my boyfriend – a lot like me.

Tell me about your blog Bioephemera.

Bioephemera is a balance between science and whimsy. The name is a combination of “bio” and “ephemera”, which means transitory or short-lived. “Ephemera” describes paper documents, like diaries and almanacs, the precursors of blogs; posters and advertisements that most people throw away; and short-lived species, like insects. 

In general, the blog covers interdisciplinary subjects like scientific art, science policy, and science journalism. When I first started a few years ago, BioE was one of the only blogs like that, but over time more and more people have become interested in scientific art. It’s great to see.