Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.
Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.
Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.
DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.
September 29, 2006
Oh my God, best article ever: Having sex in the weightlessness of outer space is the stuff of urban legends and romantic fantasy -- but experts say that there would be definite downsides as well. Spacesickness, for instance. And the...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:54 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: History
As the Nobel Prize announcements are due to come out soon, it would be good if you knew your Nobel history. Lawrence Altman for the NYTimes has an excellent article on it. Money quote: Yet in a little known story,...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:34 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: The Synapse (a neuroscience carnival)
The Synapse #8 is being hosted at Mind Hacks on Sunday. Make sure to get your submissions in before Saturday night so that they have time to read them. Details here....
Posted by Jake Young at 4:26 PM • •
September 28, 2006
Category: Geek News
I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and I mentioned the phrase All Your Base Are Belong to Us (AYBABTU) and just got a really blank stare. This is a shame because not only is it a...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:09 AM • 2 Comments •
I love YouTube -- so many ways to waste time at work. Check out this video of a popped balloon in zero gravity....
Posted by Jake Young at 10:33 AM • 0 Comments •
September 27, 2006
Category: Physics
Lee Smolin -- author of The Trouble with Physics -- was interviewed on the Leonard Lopate Show (on WNYC) talking about string theory and why he thinks we shouldn't change scientific standards because of experimental difficulties. A really interesting interview....
Posted by Jake Young at 2:11 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Medicine
Have you ever seen a cyst fly? A team of French doctors planned to slice a cyst off a man's arm Wednesday in the world's first zero-gravity surgery, operating aboard an airplane soaring and diving in and out of weightlessness....
Posted by Jake Young at 1:19 PM • 0 Comments •
September 26, 2006
Category: Development
So I am sititng in a movie theater the other day, and some teenagers sitting behind me are talking. Of course, they are talking. They are ALWAYS talking behind me. And what particularly irks me is that it is a...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:36 AM • 3 Comments •
Reason #1 why children are not cute: A three-year-old boy has used his mother's computer to buy a £9,000 car on an internet auction site. Jack Neal's parents only discovered their son's successful bid when they received a message from...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:25 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Aminals
Scientists in FL are trying to make a prosthetic tail for a dolphin, Winter, who lost hers after getting tangled in a fishing line: Winter learned how to swim without her tail, amazing her handlers with a combination of moves...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:07 AM • 1 Comments •
September 25, 2006
This Panda is not yet cute. It is in many ways precute. (It sort of looks like a fuzzy potato.) In all its not-yet-cuteness, this baby Panda was born in the Atlanta Zoo to the proud Lun Lun. We can...
Posted by Jake Young at 5:48 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Carnivals
Encephalon #7 is up at OmniBrain. Remember to submit to the Synapse this weekend to be hosted at Mind Hacks....
Posted by Jake Young at 2:49 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Science Life
James Gorman, writing in the NYTimes, laments the relative dearth of molecular biology colloquialisms: Geology and ophthalmology may provide most of our overused metaphors (maybe that's what geopolitics is), but other sciences do their part. Anatomy has contributed the jaws...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:17 AM • 3 Comments •
September 22, 2006
Category: Science politics
The trial for 6 medics in Tripoli who are being tried for infecting children with AIDS (and from what can be gathered were falsely accused) has been postoned til the end of October: The retrial of six foreign medics facing...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:15 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Medicine
Walmart is cutting prices on generic drugs in Florida as a test program: - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said on Thursday it would cut the prices of nearly 300 generic drugs to $4 per prescription starting in...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:09 AM • 4 Comments •
September 21, 2006
Category: Haha, a funny
Hells yeah: Modern, Cool Nerd 86 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 30% Dork You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd. Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:41 PM • 3 Comments •
September 20, 2006
Category: Science politics
This is absolutely unacceptable. 6 medical workers are on trial in Libya under the accusation of infecting children with HIV, and if convicted they could be executed. While expert testimony and scientific evidence was presented at the trial, this evidence...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:29 PM • 1 Comments •
Check out this story ala Shelley about a drunk man who bit a panda. "Hey, pandas are not for biting buddy."...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:23 PM • •
I was kind of wondering when they would start something like this. For the uninitiated a Wiki is an online text that anyone can edit. It has links within it to other articles forming a web on constantly changing information...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:48 PM • 2 Comments •
September 19, 2006
Category: Gender
I have talked repeatedly here about how I don't think that genetics provide an adequate explanation of the gender disparity in science. I haven't mentioned that this gender disparity does not overly disturb me, primarily because I think that some...
Posted by Jake Young at 6:04 PM • 5 Comments •
I feel really bad for this guy: Surgeons in China who said they performed the first successful penis transplant had to remove the donated organ because of the severe psychological problems it caused to the recipient and his wife. Dr...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:02 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: The Synapse (a neuroscience carnival)
Hi everyone. Sorry for the lull in blogging. I was moving into the quintessential New York apartment. I now have a room only slightly larger than my mattress and back problems from trying to lug a couch up a three...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:20 AM • 0 Comments •
September 14, 2006
Category: Video Games
I talked before about how I think the Internet represents the possibility for Alternaworlds -- worlds facilitated by social interaction on the Internet with their own rules and standards. Well, this World of Warcraft business may be rapidly careening out...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:38 AM • 0 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: Haha, a funny
Wired Magazine describes the Ultimate Blog Post from a variety of popular sites: "Blog" itself is short for "weblog," which is short for "we blog because we weren't very popular in high school and we're trying to gain respect and...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:32 AM • 3 Comments •
September 12, 2006
Category: Global Warming
Roger Pielke at Prometheus has some back of the envelope calcuations suggesting that the prospects for climate stabilization are rather bleak. His conclusions: 1. Serious thought and research needs to be given to the prospect of stabilization levels much higher...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:52 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Mental Health
GNIF Brain Blogger has a good article describing the DSM -- Diagnostic and Statistcal Manual of Mental Disorders -- that is used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental health issues of all types. Drawbacks and benefits are discussed. In spite of...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:44 AM • 0 Comments •
September 11, 2006
Category: Development
Differing from the typical strategy of threatening potential suitors with castration, scientists speculate that phermones from fathers delay their daughters sexual development: Chemical cues from fathers may be delaying the onset of sexual maturity in daughters, as part of an...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:37 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Carnivals
Encephalon #6 is up at Retrospectacle....
Posted by Jake Young at 9:15 AM • •
Category: Medicine
I talked earlier this year about a patient who recovered from a coma after 20 years. In that post, I discussed how -- with respect to the diagnostic criteria -- the difference between a persistent vegetative state and a minimally...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:07 AM • 3 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
September 8, 2006
Remember to submit to Encephalon for Monday. Shelley is hosting it. Submission details here....
Posted by Jake Young at 2:21 PM • •
This is really cool. It is a video of a guy who took a picture of himself every day for 6 years....
Posted by Jake Young at 2:12 PM • 2 Comments •
September 7, 2006
Category: Haha, a funny
The Union of Concerned Scientists is running a cartoon contest for the best global warming related cartoon. Check them out here. See, humor is cathartic. Here is my feeble attempt at a global warming cartoon. Certainly not as witty as...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:30 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Development
Why we lay babies on their backs: Research suggests that healthy newborn infants do not have what doctors call "nasoaxillary reflex" -- a protective reflex that helps keep their nasal passages open. In adults lying on their side, the nasoaxillary...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:56 AM • 0 Comments •
September 6, 2006
Category: Learning and Memory
I wrote earlier this week about evidence from electrode arrays that LTP occurs in vivo in behaving rats ("Rats, you behave!"). The paper showed that if you use an avoidance learning paradigm you can detect LTP in the hippocampus after...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:11 AM • 0 Comments •
September 5, 2006
Category: Nature vs. Nuture
Rebecca Saxe of MIT reviews Encounters with Wild Children by Adriana Benzaquen about historical confrontations with so-called wild children -- children raised outside of society without supervision or what the author calls the forbidden experiment. The occurence of wild children...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:35 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Learning and Memory
My suspicion is that the people who know about neuroscience read the title of this and said: "Wow, Jake, there's a shocker. Tell us something we didn't know." Everyone else probably said: "Guh?" Therefore, I should probably explain why I...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:06 AM • 1 Comments •
September 4, 2006
Category: Cell Biology
Check out this awesome molecular biology animation by XVIVO. My favorite is the depiction of actin and microtubule assembly and the movement of a kinesin molecule tethered to a vesicle. Apparently, Harvard has contracted out with this company to provide...
Posted by Jake Young at 8:05 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: The Synapse (a neuroscience carnival)
Hey everyone. Check out the Synapse #6 on The Mouse Trap (now organized by category). The next Synapse is on GNIF Brain Blogger on September 17th. Submission guidelines here....
Posted by Jake Young at 7:52 PM • 0 Comments •
No way: BRISBANE, Australia (AP) - Steve Irwin, the Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray during a diving expedition, Australian media said. He was 44. Irwin was filming an underwater...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:40 AM • 4 Comments •
