Now on ScienceBlogs: Falling into a Black Hole sucks!
Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.
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.
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. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.
November 30, 2006
Wired magazine is asking for nominations for the top ten sexiest geeks of 2006: Be they programmers, scientists, writers, architects or attorneys, please leave your suggestions in the comment space below. There are no rules for submission. The only guidance...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 3:30 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Global Warming
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Massachusetts et al. v. EPA. In the case, several state governments are suing the EPA for failing to regulate CO2 as a greenhouse gas. There are many levels of legal conflict on...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 3:27 PM • 1 Comments •
November 29, 2006
Category: Drugs
Benjamin Zycher, fellow at the Manhattan Institute, questions of the wisdom of allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies. Actually what I don't like about this debate is that is called "negotiating" drug prices. There is no negotiation that...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 3:44 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Education
Paul Tough, writing in the NYTimes, has an excellent long article about the challenges in teaching underprivileged and minority children. I was talking to my parents about this issue over break. I am from Denver -- though I went to...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 10:22 AM • 10 Comments •
November 28, 2006
Category: Technology
This is super interesting. Acephalous is trying to measure the speed of a meme -- an infectious idea -- as it spreads through the blogosphere. More importantly, he is trying to figure out whether they spread from the bottom up...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 5:13 PM • 0 Comments •
Take a fun test to see if you have an accent. My friends periodically give me hell because I speak like a newscaster -- or that I have a "professor" voice. Anyway, now there is validation: I actually have no...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:40 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Aminals
There you go, lemurs! Way to speciate: The number of known species of the mouse lemur, the world's smallest primate, has increased by 25% with the description of three new species, bringing the total to 15. Mouse lemurs are wide-eyed...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:23 AM • 0 Comments •
November 27, 2006
Category: Politics
I have a bunch of articles on politics here that I have been perusing. Free Exchange has a post on the moral benefits of growth. One of them is that it is prerequisite to the creation of jobs that allow...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:41 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Geek News
NPR had a great article about how otaku or nerd culture is driving economic growth: Take 24-year-old Kai. Sengoku Basara is her favorite computer game. An office worker by day, Kai spends her weekends dressed up as a 16th-century samurai,...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:35 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Neuroscience
Mind Hacks covers an article in the Financial Times about delusions and how brain damage affects cognition: Some researchers have argued that this is the basis of a similarly curious syndrome, known as Capgras delusion, where someone believes that their...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:31 PM • 0 Comments •
