Contents

A wooden museum drawer holding seashells and pinned beetles.

The map

Contents

Every page of the site, in an order you can follow. Open any line.

Open

Stories to open


A rectangular green algal cell under a microscope, filled with chloroplasts.
Concepts
The cell is a living landscape
A membrane, a set of compartments, and a supply of energy. The picture is a place you can walk through, not a factory floor.


A brass and glass sculpture of a DNA double helix on a dark bench.
Discoveries
How the helix was read
Photo 51, the model, and the names that belong on the page with it.


White flowers and a green pod on a garden pea plant.
Experiments
A garden that settled inheritance
Pea crosses, swan-neck flasks, and the density shift that showed how DNA is copied.


A pale jellyfish suspended in black water.
Serendipity
A glow nobody ordered
A contaminated plate, a hot-spring enzyme, and the jellyfish protein that became a lamp.


Wheat heads in a field at sunrise.
India
The harvest, and its cost
Khorana, Ramachandran, Janaki Ammal, and the wheat yields that also had an ecological bill.


Branching coral and small orange fish under shafts of sunlight.
World
The work, with the names attached
Franklin’s fibre pattern, Tu Youyou’s artemisinin, and the collaborators a short version usually drops.

Start

  1. About

    What the portal is, who it is for, and how to cite a page.

  2. Highlights

    Six places to begin: cell, selection, DNA, the code, wheat, CRISPR.

  3. Contents

    1. Profound Concepts

      The ideas that organize the rest of biology.

    2. Landmark Discoveries

      A dated path from the first microscopes to readable genomes.

    3. Interesting Experiments

      The comparison that made each classic result persuasive.

    4. Serendipities

      Accidents that mattered because someone noticed.

    5. Contributions

      1. India
      2. World

Study

  1. Student’s Corner

    1. Codes

      The standard genetic code, and a bench that translates a short sequence.

    2. Quiz

      Twelve questions with the reason attached to the answer.

    3. Enigma

      Riddles you can sit with before you open the hint.

    4. Humour

      Jokes that still have to be biologically honest.

  2. Trends

    1. Natural Philosophy

      Life, purpose-language, species, and what an experiment can settle.

    2. Biologist’s Corner

      How to read a paper, ask a student-sized question, and picture a life in the subject.

Further

  1. Gallery

    1. YouTube links
    2. TED links
    3. Publications
  2. Job Postings

    1. All jobs links
    2. Selected job links
  3. Blogs

    Five essays: metaphors, trees, significance, microbes, and the field notebook.

  4. Contacts

    Write to the editors. The form opens an email draft; the site stores nothing.