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

Our biological sex determines a lot about the way our bodies look and function. But what determines our biological sex?
We start off as a single tiny cell, and yet somehow we are born as whole humans. Get to know the stages of that process and how quickly we develop.

Imagine you are on a sailing ship in 1747. You left England only a couple of months ago and you felt fine. Now you are so tired you can barely walk. Dr. Lind wants to discover what is causing you so much pain that you can't work.

Imagine being the size of an ant. Be careful - a face-to-face encounter with an ant would be scary and potentially life-threatening! But, if you avoided being eaten, you could learn a lot about ant anatomy from a close-up view. Ants have many body parts that are normally hard to see without a…

What is life and how do biologists decide if something is living or non-living? Dr. Biology visits with physicist Paul Davies and microbiologist Ferran Garcia-Pichel. They talk about life, extreme life forms (extremophiles), and the possibility of life on other…

During a plague year, locusts can swarm over 20 percent of the world’s landmass, affecting one out of every 10 people on the planet. Sounds bad – right? Enter biologist Arianne Cease who has been studying why these insects swarm and how to control them. Dr. Biology learns about…

Love them or hate them, something is going on with male crickets on the island of Kauai. Once evenings filled with a chorus of these tiny singers has become strangely silent. Dr. Biology talks with biologist Marlene Zuk about how things are changing fast – maybe the fastest…

Different tools that biologists use

Whats a biologist?

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

some animals that are from different biomes

Taxonomy

Read Linnaeus and the World of Taxonomy and then take this quiz to test your knowledge!

a cartoon of peas

Genetics and Mendel

Read Solving a Genetic Mystery and then take this quiz to test your knowledge!

A snake in an underground burrow.

Desert Survivor

Play Desert Survivor

In this story-based game, you are a young rattlesnake learning to survive in a harsh desert environment. You'll search…

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…

Human skeleton game

Skeleton Viewer

Explore the Skeleton Viewer

To explore the bones of the human skeleton, check out our Skeleton Viewer. Take a look further inside of a bone…

An illustration of different cell sizes and a ruler, to measure nuclear cytoplasmic ratios

Cell Size SIM

Play the Cell Size SIM

Certain cell types should have a general size and have proportionate parts. But what if those sizes and proportions are…