Looking for the legacy site? Click here

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

Read our stories

Listen and watch

Enjoy our activities

View zoom galleries

Solve puzzles

In many fairy tales and folktales, the temperate forest is a place for discovery, adventure, and maybe a little magic. What makes this biome so special in our minds? Maybe it's the animals, the quiet that can be found there, or the way the leaves change color with the seasons.Also in:…

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

Biologist Bruce Hammock talks about life as a biologist, being a businessman and mountain climbing. How do these all fit together? Listen in as Dr. Biology learns how these pieces all work together in an interesting career.

For biologist Kate Ihle the rainforest holds the secret of her favorite insect. Wearing their their irredesent greens and blues, orchid bees are slowing sharing their story of life in the jungle. Also in: Nederlands | Español

It's a mystery, at least until you try to guess what animal children book author Conrad Storad is describing at the beginning of this episode. Joining Conrad is physiologist Michael Quinlan. Together they give us all the gory details behind this desert dwelling…

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…

An interview with biologist James Collins who is the person directing the biology section of the National Science Foundation. Listen in and learn about this important science funding agency.
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).
Nano building game

Nano Building

Play the Bionanoengineering Game. Basic building patterns can be used to think about how technologies are built at the nano-scale. Try your hand at…
Body Depot

Body Depot

Body Depot is a collection of activities and materials created in collaboration with with the Arizona Science Center. The Body Depot includes activities on DNA, proteins, bones, immune function…

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.

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.

Plankton Zoom Gallery (Plankton up-close)

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

Feather Zoom Gallery (Feathers up-close)

There is nothing like seeing a feather up close.

Birds and their Songs

Birds and Their Songs

We see them practically everywhere. They are found flying in the high mountains and soaring along the thermal winds in the low deserts. There are those that are reclusive and others you can…

Wordsearch | Crossword
Time traveling seeds

Time Traveling Plants

Every year billions of babies are dried and buried, not to be unburied for weeks, months, years or even decades. Don't worry, these are not babies like your little brother or sister, these are…

Wordsearch | Crossword
Peas

Solving a Genetic Mystery

The life and work of Gregor Mendel has some surprising pieces. Known as the father of genetics, his work was mostly unnoticed for 30 years after he published his famous paper. It is also…

Wordsearch | Crossword
internet puzzle

How to Find What You Need on the Internet

Searching for things on the Internet can be like hunting for a needle in a large haystack. Just how large is the Internet?

Wordsearch | Crossword