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.
February 28, 2007
Category: Economics
Over at The Frontal Cortex, Jonah has a blog referring to a WSJ article impugning economic jurisdiction in questions outside the traditional bounds of economics. Specifically, the article cites a paper recently publicized by Cornell University claiming to establish a...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 3:28 PM • 3 Comments •
February 27, 2007
Category: Aminals
A damn-building mammal...get your mind out of the gutter: Beavers grace New York City's official seal. But the industrious rodents haven't been spotted here for as many as 200 years -- until this week. Biologists videotaped a beaver swimming up...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:25 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Academia
Bill Gates, writing in the Washington Post, makes two concrete appeals to help maintain American competitiveness: Two steps are critical. First, we must demand strong schools so that young Americans enter the workforce with the math, science and problem-solving skills...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:24 AM • 7 Comments •
February 26, 2007
Arrgh. Avast ye dogs. This Encephalon will have a pirate theme -- largely because I am coming off a wicked three day flu extravaganza, and I am still slightly delirious. Be like when the plague took me whole crew. Arrgh....
Posted by Jake Young at 10:56 AM • 1 Comments •
February 21, 2007
Category: Women's Health
In June, we talked about a new human papiloma virus (HPV) vaccine that was being opposed by a Christian group in Colorado on the grounds that it might promote premarital sex. HPV is a virus that commonly infects the female...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:48 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Shameless Self Promotion
Nicholas Genes -- the host of Grand Rounds and an illustrious ER resident at Mount Sinai -- interviews me on Medscape about this blog. Enjoy my shameless self-promotion....
Posted by Jake Young at 10:29 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Carnivals
I am hosting Encephalon on Monday February, 26th. You can submit to Encephalon by emailing me at jamesjyoung [at] gmail {dot} com, by no later than 7 pm on Sunday night. Thanks....
Posted by Jake Young at 10:26 AM • 0 Comments •
February 20, 2007
Category: Medicine
Hi everyone, and welcome to Grand Rounds, vol. 3 no. 22. The Oscars are this Sunday, and -- since I know we all look forward to this yearly 4-hour marathon of farcical self-absorption -- this edition of Grand Rounds will...
Posted by Jake Young at 7:00 AM • 11 Comments •
February 19, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
A squirrel running around the innards of the plane grounded a Dallas-Tokyo flight: An American Airlines flight made an unscheduled landing after pilots heard something skittering about in the wire-laden space over the cockpit. The airline blamed the emergency landing...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:40 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Movies
I saw Ghost Rider last night, and I have a brief review: In this movie, there are many farcical things: demons, irrational property damage from physics-flouting motorcycles, Nicholas Cage's acting, etc. However, the most flagrant absurdity -- the most laughably...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:05 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Poems
The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy "Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin!...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:04 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Carnivals
Just a brief reminder, Grand Rounds will be hosted here tomorrow. Submit your medicine-related posts to me no later than 7 pm this evening if you would like them to be included....
Posted by Jake Young at 9:01 AM • 0 Comments •
February 16, 2007
Category: Teaching
Lazy Middlebury students have lost a valuable resource: Middlebury College history students are no longer allowed to use Wikipedia in preparing class papers. The school's history department recently adopted a policy that says it's OK to consult the popular online...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:18 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Evolution
I know that a bunch of other people covered this story, but I managed to find a video of it so I thought I would post it anyway. Researchers working in Ivory Coast have found remnants of a chimpanzee habitation...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:38 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Drugs
Dr. Henry Miller, writing in TCS, argues that the FDA has over-reacted to problems with drug safety by excessive regulation: In spite of increasingly more powerful and precise technologies for drug discovery, purification and production, during the past twenty years...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:24 AM • 4 Comments •
February 15, 2007
Category: Pop culture
Not to be catty, but what the hell is up with that hat? Did Britney Spears skin Santa and send him to a furrier? Hat-tip: WWTDD....
Posted by Jake Young at 10:50 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Space
In light of the Lisa Nowak love triangle/kidnapping/nutness NASA is re-evaluating how it...well...evaluates astronauts for psychological fitness for space flights. Part of the problem is one of sex frankly; astronauts are not allowed to have it while on duty. NASA...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:37 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: Eating Disorders
I guess they are really serious: The organizers of Spain's top annual fashion show on Sunday rejected five out of 69 fashion models as being too thin to appear in this year's event, acting on a decision to bar underweight...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:27 AM • 4 Comments •
February 14, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Hat-tip: Gawker....
Posted by Jake Young at 9:52 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Mental Health
Restless Legs Syndrome is a neurological disorder, in spite of what you might think from the ridiculous ads on television. RLS is a syndrome where the individual has weird sensations in their legs while they are trying to relax. These...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:30 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Cathy Young has an interesting column on the tension among libertarians between the desire to be tolerant about other people's lifestyles and personal convictions about those issues: Within the libertarian milieu, there is a tension between political libertarians, whose chief...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:26 AM • 3 Comments •
February 13, 2007
Category: Carnivals
Hi everyone. Grand Rounds is up at Chronic Babe. Grand Rounds is being hosted here next week on Tuesday. The theme will be Oscars-related, but I won't be giving preference to any particular type of medical piece. Just send me...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:39 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Government Paternalism
I am not really that into online poker; I lack the patience to be truly great at poker. However, I have several friends that swear by it, and we were all quite annoyed when Congress decided to attach a ban...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:05 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Academia
I'm sorry, but parents like this should be shot: Helicopter parents -- so named because they hover over their children -- have reached the workplace. The same generation that turned parenting into a competitive sport, prepping 3-year-olds for preschool, then...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:56 AM • 6 Comments •
February 12, 2007
Category: Carnivals
Encephalon 16 is up at Mind Hacks....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:43 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Psychology
Harvard Psychologist Steven Pinker was on the Colbert Report. Priceless. Videos under the fold:...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:07 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Haha, a funny
Take that PZ, I'm Magneto. What kind of supervillain are you? Your results:You are Magneto Magneto 64% The Joker 63% Apocalypse 63% Mr. Freeze 56% Dr. Doom 55% Lex Luthor 50% Riddler 49% Green Goblin 44% Venom 42% Poison Ivy...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:51 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Sex
Oh wow. Oh wow. This press release is simply astonishing. Maybe it is because it has been a long time -- and as a consequence I have a mind for dirty press releases. Maybe it is just because I quite...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:40 AM • 12 Comments •
Category: Poems
In Memory of Sigmund Freud by W.H. Auden When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of a whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:06 AM • 1 Comments •
February 8, 2007
Category: Learning and Memory
We have been talking about this paper in PNAS around the lab, so I thought I would share. Hassabis et al, publishing in PNAS, have shown that patients with hippocampal damage lack the ability to imagine novel situations. This is...
Posted by Jake Young at 5:24 PM • 3 Comments •
February 7, 2007
Category: Psychology
"So I am a Libra. I enjoy science and blogging. I dislike dogs, people who talk in movies, and other people's children. I am looking for a woman who breathes regularly and is at least partially heterosexual." -- so speaketh...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:11 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Government Paternalism
This will never end. Ever. There will always be some yo-yo who feels it necessary to protect me from reality: First it was cell phones in cars, then trans fats. Now, a new plan is on the table to ban...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:54 PM • 10 Comments •
February 6, 2007
Category: Perception
This is the best advertisement for a video game ever. The researchers compared people who played Unreal Tournament for 30 hours with people who played Tetris. They found that the Unreal Tournament players had an increase in visual processing speed:...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:49 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Astronomy
Good news for sufferers of osteoporosis. There is more calcium in the universe than theoretical physicists had predicted: According to Jelle de Plaa, space researcher at SRON, many answers can be found in distant clusters of galaxies. "Clusters are in...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:32 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Physics
Photons can carry enormous amount of information, but one of the problems in using them to encode information is that they are difficult to store for even short periods (they are moving at the speed of light after all!). University...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:26 AM • 0 Comments •
February 5, 2007
Category: Obesity and Heart Disease
After surveying parents of overweight children researchers found that the majority are not even aware their child is overweight: Researchers with Deakin's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research surveyed more than 1200 families to find out if parents had...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:32 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Ethics
Ghost authorship is the omission of the name of someone who contributed to a scientific paper from that paper's list of authors. Sometimes this can be because what the individual contributed is not considered critical to the creation of that...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:22 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Poems
(That would be Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., not Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- the Supreme Court Justice.) Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man by Oliver Wendell Holmes Oh, there are times When all this fret and tumult that we hear...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:23 AM • 0 Comments •
February 2, 2007
Category: Politics
I was reading the article that is currently was on the Buzz in Scienceblogs. It is about President Bush issuing an executive order to the bureaucracy curtailing the use of guidance statements and insisting that political appointees evaluate the costs...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:00 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Global Warming
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is out today, and I was shocked to discover that it is already being misreported. It was being mis-reported before, but that was just leaks. You can lie with leaks. They are easily...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:30 AM • 10 Comments •
