Biology àla Shmoop: Shmoop Launches Biotext, the New Life Form in Shmoopology

Aug. 22, 2011 - PRLog -- The moon is full again, and Shmoop is launching more product: Full Contact Biology. We have scintillating text (we still crack ourselves up, egg-like), PG-13 rated drawings on naked mitochondria, and vivid evocations of all of the goopy stuff that just goes with biology.

Ours is a living textbook and we invite you to imbibe.

Key cells from our travails:
Our hypothesis is that biology doesn't have to be boring. The only boring thing in a biology text should be the drill they use to cut into the frog's brain.

1. Study The Chemistry of Life (first cousin to The Circle): This story is about love and hate on the atomic level (our bio version of Facebook and The Bachelor). The Evil Dr. Chlorine just robbed Mr. Nackle (sodium joke) of one of his electrons. Now water goes polar 24/7.

Too clever? Well, we're just wondering aloud whether scientists could some day ever pull off the real Jurassic Park. It'd be so cool.

2. Embrace Energy Flow and Enzymes (slightly less forward-looking than Ozymes but one unit more advanced than Emzymes): We explore the Gibbs equation (no relation to Saturday Night Fever).  We'll also tell you what enzymes and Legos have in common and why you should heart enzymes if you heart cheese.

3. The Sell on The Cell: We have the most awesome cell pictures ever. (Children must be over 13 to view them in every state but California and Euphoria.)  We dissect the dual personality of phospholipids (think: Jenny Craig visitors inside a cell), and you will figure out why nematodes do more than destroy SpongeBob's pineapple house.

4. Click. Smile. "Cheese!":Photosynthesis. A slug makes stealing plant parts his business so he can get his photosynthesis groove on. The snail slid down the turtle's back and said, "Wheeeeee!"

5. Ecology:  It's not about getting your undergrad degree online. Ecology is about how we relate with the world around us.  Why have penguins not taken over life as we know it? How isFinding Nemo full of ecology goodness? Whyare moo-cows, not mucous, in every ecology diagram we have ever seen (even ours)?OK,we're done uddering on the subject.

Shmoop Biology. It's out. It's live. It's bio-love. Come check us out. And in.

For more scoop on Shmoop’sBiology Learning Guides, visit: http://www.shmoop.com/biology/

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Shmoop is a digital curriculum and test prep company that makes fun, rigorous learning and teaching materials. Shmoop content is written by master teachers and Ph.D. students from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and other top universities. Shmoop Learning Guides, SAT and Test Prep, and Teacher’s Editions balance a teen-friendly, approachable style with academically rigorous materials to help students understand how subjects relate to their daily lives. Shmoop offers more than 10,000 titles across the Web, iPhone, Android devices, iPad, Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader. The company has been honored twice by the Webby Awards and was named “Best in Tech” for 2010 and 2011 by Scholastic Administrator Magazine. Launched in 2008, Shmoop is headquartered in a labradoodle-patrolled office in Mountain View, Calif.