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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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Every living thing must be able to reproduce and make offspring. Most of us are familiar with how humans and mammals make babies, but do all creatures reproduce in the same way? Do insects, like the beetle, give birth to little insects? Also in:…

No two environments on Earth are the same. But with so many places to learn about, we often need to talk about some environments as a similar group rather than individually. For that, we have the brilliance of biomes.Also in: Français |

You might think of your parents as being old, or being fairly young; maybe they are many years apart in age. Did you know that parental age may affect the likelihood that a child will develop a brain disorder? 

To a new visitor, the savanna may look just like a grassland with a few trees. But if you spend some time in the savanna, you learn it is quite different from other biomes.

Also in: Français | Español |…

When you visit a pond or the beach, what kinds of living things do you see in the water? Don’t let your eyes fool you… there’s a hidden world in water full of creatures too small to be seen!

"Your home has termites" – is not something anyone wants to hear. But these insects are really important for our survival. Dr. Biology learns about these insects from entomologist, Barbara Thorn. It turns out that these critters are like tiny 'green machines' and one of the…

The tiny world of nanobiology is the topic of this show. Dr. Biology sits down with nanobiologist and physicist Stuart Lindsay to learn about nanobiology and some of the cool and strange things that happen when things are so small.

It is surprising how much of the land on Earth is what scientists call drylands. You might think that these areas are not crucial to life on the planet, but in fact, they are. They are also some of the most challenging places to do research. Part of the challenge is what we see above ground is only…
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…

Student host

Make Your Own Podcasts

Join the revolution. You can now produce podcasts for classroom, school, and beyond. Very little equipment required and costs are low. The benefits can be high. Clearly there are many different…

Different tools that biologists use

Whats a biologist?

Read What's a Biologist? and then take this quiz to test your knowledge!

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.

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.

Two ants carrying a puzzle piece

Ants

There are so many types of ants that it's funny the animated movie about them centers on one type that doesn't exist: a male worker ant. In this story you can explore some of the types of ants…

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Endangered animal list

Making the List

By the time the first endangered species list was made, many species had already gone extinct.  Some species, like whooping cranes, were almost extinct at that time.  But the US…

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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…

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Big Bad Beetles

A story of blood, love, and family… Learn about one of the biggest and fanciest blister beetles anywhere. This species goes by the scientific name of Lytta magister but has also been called the…

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