Seed Media Group

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

Profile

jake-head-shot.jpgJake 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.

Search this blog

Archives

Blogroll


raptor.jpg

April 30, 2007

Crazy Useful Paper on Statistics

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...

Read on »

Exercise in pill form

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...

Read on »

Snot improves performance of electronic nose, is gross

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...

Read on »

April 27, 2007

Survery of Undergrad Research

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...

Read on »

Neurological "Personhood"

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...

Read on »

April 26, 2007

Fair Use Madness

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...

Read on »

Evolution and religion debate in a broader context

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...

Read on »

April 25, 2007

What's happening to all the bees? Want to know, perform an experiment...

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...

Read on »

April 24, 2007

Interesting Conversation on Weber

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...

Read on »

Not an editorial I expected to read in the Christian Science Monitor

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...

Read on »

April 23, 2007

Caffeinated soap?

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...

Read on »

Kremlin to journalists: "50% of news must be positive," Reality thus far refuses to comply

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...

Read on »

Science on Funding Woes

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...

Read on »

April 20, 2007

Is this portrait too hot to be Jane Austen?

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...

Read on »

Geeky Goodness for Redheads

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...

Read on »

April 19, 2007

Best site ever: Peep experiments

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...

Read on »

The most intelligent thing I've heard about Virginia Tech -or- The limits of mental health policy

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....

Read on »

"Sir, please try not to befriend the chimps."

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...

Read on »

April 18, 2007

The Supreme Court Upholds Partial Abortion Ban

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...

Read on »

Reason interviews Jackson Publick, co-creator of The Venture Brothers

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...

Read on »

April 17, 2007

The Problem with Funding at University Hospitals isn't the Government

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...

Read on »

April 16, 2007

Electric bidet catches fire

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...

Read on »

Music does not make your kid smarter

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...

Read on »

April 12, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut RIP

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,...

Read on »

April 11, 2007

Virginia Postrel on Fashion in Museums

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"...

Read on »

TCS Interviews Freeman Dyson

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...

Read on »

April 10, 2007

Ejaculation turns off men's brains

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...

Read on »

The Science of Buffalo Wings and Overeating

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...

Read on »

April 9, 2007

Twin studies show high heritability of brain volume for certain regions

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...

Read on »

April 5, 2007

Keith Richards snorted his father!

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...

Read on »

Stress precedes volume reductions in the hippocampus in PTSD

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...

Read on »

Chopper rescues man, accosts bird in tree

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...

Read on »

April 2, 2007

Top Ten Best April Fool's Day hoaxes

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...

Read on »

Bill Bailey is my hero

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....

Read on »

The complex nature of prenatal programming of obesity

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...

Read on »

Search All Blogs

Blogs in the Network

Top Five: Most Active

Top Science Stories

powered by SEED - seedmagazine.com