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Welcome to Ask A Biologist. This site has a large collection of biology learning materials that includes stories, games, activities, videos, and a podcast.

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Solve puzzles

When was the last time you folded a piece of paper to make a fun shape? Maybe you made a paper plane or tried origami to make a swan. Believe it or not, the building blocks inside your body also need to fold into the right shapes to work properly. In this activity, you can build your…

Forget all the robots you might have seen or imagined. This biologist is making colorful coiling snakes and other robots to study animals in the wild. Dr. Biology expands his idea of what robots look like and what they can do when he meets and talks with roboticist and biologist Talia Yuki…

When it comes to fighting off bad germs, doctors have to use their best medicines. What do we do though, when our best weapons make our enemies stronger?Also in: Español | Italiano |…

These fluttering icons of North America are a favorite of many people across the world, but they may be having some population problems. Don’t worry though, there are ways you can help. Conservation specialist Gail Morris talks with our student guest host Kayna Lantz…

Dr. Biology gets the skinny on our largest organ - our skin. Professor and author Nina Jablonski talks about the important ways our skin works for us each day.

Congratulations to Seed Beetle, the 2011 Ugly Bug contest winner.

Dr. Biology takes trip to visit Michael Berens, adjunct professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and Senior Investigator at Translational Genomics Institute (TGen).

There are many types of relationships that exist in the living world. This episode dives into one special relationship that an insect has with some tiny microbes. It is a life and death story that microbiologist John McCutcheon has been exploring. Dr. Biology gets the…

a time machine with plants on it

Seeds

Read Time Traveling Plants and then take this quiz to test your knowledge!

Rainforest virtual biome tour

Virtual Reality Tours of Biology

Explore our Virtual Tours. See the world of biology through virtual tours. Visit different environments, travel through time,…

Build an Ant Farm

Have you ever watched ants going into and out of their nest, and wondered what was going on underground? It’s pretty hard to find out from the surface. If you dig up the nest, the ants get…

Ant Gallery (Get up-close to ants)

Now is the time to check out these amazing animals from the safety of your own computer.

Bone Zoom Gallery (Up-close Inside Bones)

Take a look at the microscopic world of bone in our virtual bone histology lab. Just pick a microscope slide from below and click on it to view under the virtual microscope.

Pollen Gallery (Pollen up-close)

Pollen comes in many shapes and sizes. These are just a few of the thousands of examples.

Tiger Beetle Zoom Gallery (Up-close with tiger beetles)

Some of the fastest animals on Earth are below. That’s right, if these tiny insects were as large as a horse they would be running 200 miles an hour.

crystallography

Making Life Crystal Clear

Much like a mechanical watch, living things only work when all the gears work together. Some of the tiniest of gears are proteins. Learning about the shape and size of these proteins is the job…

Wordsearch | Crossword
Python

Perfect Python Parenting

Being a parent is hard work. Though a snake might not seem comforting to you, pythons are actually very dedicated moms that take good care of their kids.Also in:…

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Darwin and Mendel's Afternoon Tea

Darwin and Mendel's Afternoon Tea

An imaginary conversation between two great thinkers, Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel. While the monk, Mendel, had read Darwin’s publications - Mendel's work only came to be known later. We…

Wordsearch | Crossword
Monarch butterfly

Metamorphosis – Nature’s Ultimate Transformer

Transforming robots are favorites of television and movies, but nature has some of the best transformers. Animals that can change in ways that almost seem unbelievable. Also in:…

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