Readings

1a) Baloney Detection and the Tools of Science
1b) Cornell Note-Taking System
Due first week of classes.

2)  Probability Handout
This is a short primer on the basic notions from probability that we will use in both lecture and lab.

3)  Scientific Notation Handout
This handout, originally given to students in the first lab, summarizes scientific notation.

4) Graphing and Basic Statistics
This was originally handed out in the third (Mitosis and Meiosis) lab, and it walks through how to calculate means, standard deviations and standard errors using spreadsheet software, and how to construct scatter- and bar-plots with the same programs. It focuses primarily on Gnumeric and Open Office spreadsheets, and does not support Microsoft’s Excel 2007/8 (and never will).

5) Intermediate Statistics for Biologists
This handout, which comes from an applied statistics text I’m preparing with Rob Cutler of Bard College and Kim Cooper of Midwestern University, Glendale, introduces basic summary statistics, including mean, variance, standard deviation, as well as some inferential tools like standard error of the mean and confidence intervals.

6) “Experiments in Plant Hybridization” (Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden)
This is Mendel’s original 1866 paper translated from the original German into English by Bateson (with some later corrections by others).

7) “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids” (Watson and Crick 1953)
This is the famous paper by Watson and Crick, published in Nature in 1953, in which they lay out the structure of DNA.

8) “The Replication of DNA in Escherichia coli” (Meselson and Stahl 1958)
Meselson and Stahl show that DNA replication is semi-conservative; that is, when DNA replicates, each sister chromatid receives one of the two original strands from the mother DNA molecule.