Cells, Genes, and the Living World
Understand how living organisms function from microscopic membranes to global ecosystems. Discover how cells process energy, how DNA translates into working proteins, and how inheritance and natural selection shape all life on Earth.
Like Duolingo, but for Cells, Genes, and the Living World. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
21 levels across 3 sections, about 42 minutes end to end, roughly 8 days at five minutes a day. It moves through How Cells Live and Interact; The Genetic Code: From Blueprint to Protein; and Inheritance, Variation, and the Living World. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Cells, Genes, and the Living World
- Phospholipids have water-attracting heads facing outward and water-repelling fatty tails pointing inward
- The interior of the membrane bilayer is oily and water-insoluble, which stops watery cell contents from mixing freely with the outside
- Tiny, uncharged molecules like oxygen and carbon dioxide diffuse straight through the lipid bilayer
- Charged ions cannot cross the oily membrane core and must use specialized channel proteins
- Larger polar nutrients like glucose rely on dedicated carrier proteins to enter the cell
- Passive transport moves substances from an area of higher concentration to lower concentration
- Moving down a concentration gradient happens naturally and costs the cell zero energy
- Moving molecules from low to high concentration goes against the natural gradient
- Pumping against a concentration gradient requires active transport, which burns energy in the form of ATP
- Bulk materials too large for protein channels are enclosed inside membrane-bound bubbles called vesicles
- To export material (exocytosis), the vesicle travels to the cell boundary
- The vesicle membrane fuses with the outer cell membrane, opening up and dumping its cargo outside
- Many signaling molecules bind to receptor proteins sitting on the outer surface of the cell membrane
- The receptor changes shape upon binding, passing the message inward while the signaling molecule remains outside the cell
- Signal transduction works like a relay race where one activated protein switches on multiple downstream proteins
- This cascading chain reaction amplifies a tiny initial trigger into a massive cellular response
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Cells, Genes, and the Living World the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What stops the watery fluid inside your cell from spilling out into the watery world around it?
Get it right to open this lesson and 20 more in the app.
Where Cells, Genes, and the Living World takes you
- 1
How Cells Live and Interact
- The Cell's Gatekeepers: Managing What Moves In and Out
- Cellular Switchboards: How Cells Listen and Respond
- Architectural Variety: Bacteria, Plants, Fungi, and Viruses
- 2
The Genetic Code: From Blueprint to Protein
- Storing the Code: The Architecture of DNA and RNA
- Building Living Machines: Reading Genes into Proteins
- 3
Inheritance, Variation, and the Living World
- Dividing and Combining: Mitosis, Meiosis, and Inheritance
- Adaptation and Ecosystems: Natural Selection in Action
3 sections · 7 units · 21 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Cells, Genes, and the Living World is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
More Science on Tomo
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How Living Things Work
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The Machinery of Life
Move beyond basic definitions to understand the chemical engines, genetic circuits, and complex systems that drive every living thing on Earth.
The Biological Control Room
Explore how life manages energy and information to stay in balance. You will learn how your body regulates itself, how cells power their operations, and how DNA acts as the ultimate instruction manual.
The Living World Around You
Stop seeing just plants and animals and start seeing the invisible systems that keep life moving. Learn how your body works, how nature stays in balance, and the secrets hidden in your DNA.
Physics: How the World Moves
Make sense of the invisible rules governing everyday motion, impacts, and forces. Learn to see how inertia, gravity, and energy dictate why cars slide, roller coasters loop, and collisions happen the way they do.
Start Cells, Genes, and the Living World today.
Download Tomo, search Cells, Genes, and the Living World, and play your first lesson in under a minute.