Day 1

Flagellar Length Control System, Testing a Simple Model Based on Intraflagellar Transport and Turnover by Wallace F. Marshall, Hongmin Qin, Monica Rodrigo Brenni, and Joel L. Rosenbaum (2005) Flagellum experiment: cut one of the two flagella and watch it regrow. The cut flagellum grows while the uncut one shrinks, until both reach the same length.
The Eye of Reason, Darwin’s Development during the Beagle Voyage by Howard E. Gruber and Valmai Gruber (1962) Darwin’s exploration.
Duration of urination does not change with body size by Patricia J. Yang, Jonathan Pham, Jerome Choo, and David L. Hu (2014) Mammals heavier than ~3 kg have an approximately constant urination time (~21 ± 13 s): flow rate is gravity-dominated so T ≈ V/Q. For smaller mammals, capillary and viscous forces complicate the scaling.
The Purpose and Ubiquity of Turnover by Peter W. Reddien (2024) Why biological systems continually destroy and replace their components.

Day 2

Patterns of Predation in a Diverse Predator–Prey System by A. R. E. Sinclair, Simon Mduma, Justin S. Brashares (2003) How prey body size determines whether populations are controlled by predators or by food availability.

Models in biology: ‘accurate descriptions of our pathetic thinking’ by Jeremy Gunawardena (2014) Models turn assumptions into conclusions, helping us test our thinking rather than literally reproduce nature.
Leonhard Euler’s Integral: A Historical Profile of the Gamma Function by Philip J. Davis (1959) Traces the development of Euler’s integral and the gamma function, showing how mathematical ideas evolve through changing interpretations and applications.
Myosin V Walks Hand-Over-Hand: Single Fluorophore Imaging with 1.5-nm Localization by Ahmet Yildiz, Joseph N. Forkey, Sean A. McKinney, Taekjip Ha, Yale E. Goldman, and Paul R. Selvin (2003) Tracks individual myosin V heads with nanometer precision, providing direct evidence that the motor moves along actin by a hand-over-hand walking mechanism.

In Memoriam: Jacques Monod (1910–1976) by Agnes Ullmann (2011) Reflects on Jacques Monod’s life and scientific contributions, including his central role in developing modern ideas of gene regulation and molecular biology.
The Great Ideas of Biology by Paul Nurse (2003) Presents five central ideas in biology: the cell, the gene, evolution by natural selection, life as chemistry, and biological organization through information and logical processes.
On the Relation Between the Second Law of the Mechanical Theory of Heat and Probability Calculations Regarding Thermal Equilibrium by Ludwig Boltzmann (1877) Develops a probabilistic description of thermal equilibrium and derives the exponential form of the equilibrium energy distribution.
Four Golden Lessons by Steven Weinberg (2003) Offers four lessons for young scientists: start research before you know everything, seek out messy problems, accept that much research time will be wasted, and learn the history of your field.

Jane’s Random Energy Packet Exchange Simulation An interactive simulation showing how random exchange of conserved energy packets between particles produces an exponential distribution. In spirit: “Give me your snack!” “No, you give me your snack!”
Course on Bayesian Inference Website of a Bayesian Inference class taught by Justin Bois at Caltech
Distribution Explorer Website regrouping most of the common probability distributions, their properties and physical description by Justin Bois at Caltech.