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.
April 30, 2007
Category: Statistics
Want to know when to use Standard Deviation (SD) as opposed to Standard Error (SE) or a Confidence Interval (CI)? Then you should read this really useful paper in JCB about error bars in scientific papers. Here is just a...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:57 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Obesity and Heart Disease
If this works, this guy is going to make a bagillion dollars: By giving ordinary adult mice a drug - a synthetic designed to mimic fat - Salk Institute scientist Dr. Ronald M. Evans is now able to chemically switch...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:31 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Technology
They didn't need to go out and make artificial snot. It's allergy season...I got plenty for them right here: Researchers at The University of Warwick and Leicester University have used an artificial snot (nasal mucus) to significantly enhance the performance...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:15 AM • 0 Comments •
April 27, 2007
Category: Academia
I had the great pleasure of working in labs as an undergrad. Most of my classmates now did as well. Part of the good experience was the ability to really narrow down what type of science I was most interested...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:32 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Ethics
Ronald Bailey at Reason reviews an interesting article in the American Journal of Bioethics by Martha Farah and Andrea Heberlein and the responses to it. Farah and Heberlein argue that while an innate system for the detection of personhood exists...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:43 AM • 6 Comments •
April 26, 2007
Category: Blogging
I don't know if you caught this story, but one of our fellow bloggers here at ScienceBlogs, Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle, was threatened with legal action when she reproduced a figure from a published paper in one of her blog...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:02 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Religion
The Economist has a great article summarizing all the ways in which the debate between evolution and religion has gone global. It also does a good job of analyzing the different strains within the American debate, depicting it as much...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:31 PM • 16 Comments •
April 25, 2007
Category: Aminals
I don't know if you have been following this story, but there have been massive honey bee die-offs recently in the United States. Considering that honey bees are the primary pollinators for many of the crops grown here, this is...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:33 AM • 4 Comments •
April 24, 2007
Category: Philosophy
Here is your philosophical conversation to ponder over for the day. (I am cleaning out links, and this is the sort of stuff you get when I am cleaning out links.) I recently read an interesting interchange on about Weber's...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:02 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Reproduction, Birth Control, and Abortion Politics
If you read the statistics, it isn't difficult to question the effectiveness of abstinence-only education in schools. It is about as effective as telling a three-year-old to not eat that big cookie on the table and then leaving the room...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:49 AM • 4 Comments •
April 23, 2007
Category: Geek News
For those of you who don't have time to shower and have a cup of coffee (or who have failed miserably to do those things simultaneously), why not consider caffeinated soap: Tired of waking up and having to wait for...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:14 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Free speech
Managers of Russia's new media have informed their journalists that from now on 50% of the news must be positive: At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia's largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:09 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Funding
Excellent analysis from an article in Science on the recent funding woes (sadly behind a subscription wall). Money quote: Meanwhile, research institutions everywhere were breaking ground on new facilities and expanding their faculty. In a 2002 survey, AAMC found that...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:03 AM • 3 Comments •
April 20, 2007
Category: Books
A controversial portrait -- possibly of the writer Jane Austen -- was put up for auction at Christie's yesterday. (Actually it failed to sell.) The controversy is over whether the picture is actually of her. (A photo of the portrait...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:38 AM • 12 Comments •
Category: Geek News
As I indicated in my previous post (also related to Lindsay Lohan), being a redhead derives from a recessive allele in the Melanocortin Receptor 1 -- a receptor from Melanocyte Stimulating Hormone. MC1R mutations also result in the phenotype of...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:11 AM • 1 Comments •
April 19, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Hat-tip: Shelley. This site is awesome!!! They did all these experiments with Peeps like what it takes to dissolve a peep or what happens to a peep in a vacuum. I am so going to do some of this stuff...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:01 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Mental Health
The murders at Virginia Tech are horrible and tragic, but they have also spawned a lot of hysterical claims. I think that is why I haven't talked about them. I have no desire to get swept up in that hysteria....
Posted by Jake Young at 10:54 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Aminals
Outcast chimp prefers humans to other chimps: We all know not to feed the animals when visiting the zoo. Now the Antwerp Zoo has urged visitors to, please, stop staring at the chimpanzees. New rules have been posted outside the...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:41 AM • 1 Comments •
April 18, 2007
Category: Reproduction, Birth Control, and Abortion Politics
It is going to be a big day of other people's work because I don't have time to post anything of my own. However, that doesn't mean the day is news-free. The Supreme Court issued a decision today upholding the...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:38 PM • 7 Comments •
Category: TV
Reason magazine has a great interview with Jackson Publick, the co-creator of one of my favorite shows The Venture Brothers. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is sort of a parody of all the cartoons from the...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:08 PM • 1 Comments •
April 17, 2007
Category: Funding
I have talked about funding a couple of times (here and here), and I get the impression from the comments about those posts that my views are at the minimum somewhat iconoclastic. Basically, while I would prefer the government to...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:18 AM • 3 Comments •
April 16, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Now that is unfortunate: Japan's leading toilet maker Toto Ltd. is offering free repairs for 180,000 bidet toilets after wiring problems caused several to catch fire, the company said Monday. The electric bidet accessory of Toto's Z series caught fire...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:20 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Neuroscience
Thank you, Germany: Passively listening to Mozart -- or indeed any other music you enjoy -- does not make you smarter. But more studies should be done to find out whether music lessons could raise your child's IQ in the...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:50 AM • 4 Comments •
April 12, 2007
Category: Books
Kurt Vonnegut died this morning in Manhattan. He was 84. To hear him read an excerpt of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse Five, go to this interview at Salon. It's my favorite part. From Slaughterhouse Five: Billy licked his lips,...
Posted by Jake Young at 8:21 AM • 1 Comments •
April 11, 2007
Category: Pop culture
Virginia Postrel has an interesting column in Atlantic Monthly on the aesthetic purpose of fashion in museums: The Boston exhibit's comment book records a debate between fans, mostly women, who praise the museum for displaying an "inspiring" and "seldom seen"...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:48 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Ethics
TCS published an interview with Freeman Dyson about his iconoclasm and his optimism about the future of science and humanity: Benny Peiser: One of your most influential lectures is re-published in your new book. I am talking about your Bernal...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:41 AM • 0 Comments •
April 10, 2007
Category: Sex
Many of you will be shocked -- shocked -- to discover that ejaculation turns off men's brains. Well only briefly... Janniko et al., after publishing an earlier paper on the subject in 2003, have chosen again to examine the activation...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:42 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Obesity and Heart Disease
If you don't want to overeat, make sure they don't bus your table: People watching the Super Bowl who saw how much they had already eaten -- in this case, leftover chicken-wing bones -- ate 27 percent less than people...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:14 AM • 5 Comments •
April 9, 2007
Category: Nature vs. Nuture
I just thought this paper was kind of cool. It reviews the evidence from twin studies that shows that certain regions of the brain show very high levels of genetic heritability. Heritability, as I discussed in an earlier post, is...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:36 AM • 0 Comments •
April 5, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Not to be outdone in ridiculousness by the younger generation, Keith Richards has admitted to inhaling his father's ashes: Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:09 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: PTSD
There was a debate in the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for some time about whether the shrinkage observed in the hippocampus -- a structure involved in learning and memory -- was the result of the stress or was a vulnerability...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:59 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Aminals
You know, waiting might have been just as effective: It took a Coast Guard helicopter to rescue a man and his pet cockatoo from the heights of a pine tree after he got stuck trying retrieve the $2,000 bird. William...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:35 AM • 1 Comments •
April 2, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
From AFP: -- Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:46 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: TV
I was just in London, and a friend of mine clued me into this British comic named Bill Bailey. Priceless. Anyway, this is not even vaguely science-related, but there is a clip below the fold that is too funny....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:05 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Obesity and Heart Disease
This article struck my eye because all of the literature I was familiar with said the opposite. The authors looked a weight gain in the mother during pregnancy and found that the children of the mothers who gained too much...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:40 AM • 6 Comments •
