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

Whether you overeat or try to cut back, your body may be playing a strategic game based on the amount of energy you take in.

What happens when our brain fails us? As Dr. Biology, my work has never been involved with diseases that affect the mind, but I do have a personal experience with the shadowy realm of Alzheimer's and other dementias. My mother battled against this relentless adversary and I am not alone. …

We peek behind the curtain of SICB and the band of scientists who are investigating the world of animal communication. Scientists Kim Hoke and Nate Morehouse sit down with Dr. Biology and talk about how the Spatio-temporal Dynamics in Animal Communication group…

Mosquitoes are more than just a bother - in many cases, they can be dangerous. Arm yourself against mosquitoes with knowledge of their life cycle, the diseases they carry, and how you can fight them. Also in: Español |

Step-by-step tutorial for building your own Pocket Seed Viewer. You can use it to test the effects of light, dark, temperature and gravity on seed germination and plant growth.

Imagine you want to pull a long cylinder-shaped piece of soil (called a core) out of the ground in your backyard. What kind of tools would you need? Find out how researchers collect cores in the Frozen Arctic.

Get the 411 or in this case the ATGC on DNA and the new gene editing tool called CRISPR.
Honey bees use a waggle dance to communicate the location, distance and quality of a flower to other bee workers. But what does this dance actually look like?
Albumin

Breaking Proteins

Every day, as you cook, clean, and eat, you are breaking proteins. Not sure how you're doing it? Join us to learn a few ways you can break proteins at home or in the classroom.
some crystals of different colors with microscopic life on them

X-ray Crystallography

Read Making Life Crystal Clear and then take this quiz to test your knowledge!

an eye with an eyebrow

How Vision Works

Read How Do We See? and then take this quiz to test your knowledge!

Four mini-illustrations of a water bottle, the sun, a child, and sun protective wear (hat, glasses, and light t-shirt)

Beat the Heat

Play Beat the HeatStaying safe in the heat is more than just a game, it can be a life saver. Luckily, you can see if you have what it takes to stay cool in…

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.

Feather Zoom Gallery (Feathers up-close)

There is nothing like seeing a feather up close.

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.

Plankton Zoom Gallery (Plankton up-close)

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

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
Monarch butterfly puzzle

Migrating Monarchs

Thousands of orange and black shapes flutter through the trees. Welcome to one of the few wintering homes of the monarch butterfly. Also in: Español…

Wordsearch | Crossword
Orchid bee

Bee Jeweled

Orchid bees come in an amazing array of shapes and colors. You could call them the jewels of the bee kingdom. Also in: Nederlands |

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