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.
July 30, 2007
Category: Movies
I saw the Simpsons Movie, twice in fact, which should indicate to you how good I found it to be. Two favorite lines. This one from the trailer: The other one was where Tom Hanks is trying to sell the...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:02 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Drugs
Are you shocked? I'm not: Drinking malt liquor -- the cheap, high-alcohol beverage often marketed to teens -- may put young adults at increased risk for alcohol problems and use of illicit drugs, particularly marijuana, according to a new study...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:56 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Other People's Work
I am clearing out links, so here are two quotes on a libertarian persuasion. From Jane Galt (about media coverage of the Hillary/Obama foreign policy debate: It's not really my business, since I don't think anyone will ever describe me...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:42 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Quotes
From Edgar Allen Poe's essay The Imp of the Perverse: We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued,...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:37 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Drugs
A healthy debate rages as to whether Restless Legs Syndrome is actually a disease, or whether it was something contrived by drug companies in order to sell drugs. Nicholas Wade reports in the NY Times that two separate studies have...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:27 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Public Health
Aside from believing that cell phones give you cancer, many individuals report that feelings of illness around cell phones and other electromagnetic fields. This being in spite of the fact that human beings possess no sensory apparatus to detect electromagnetic...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:11 AM • 3 Comments •
July 23, 2007
Category: Safety
Despite numerous statements by the airline industry and government to the contrary, it is in fact slightly safer to sit at the back of the plane in a plane crash. The first class cabin had the lowest survival rate for...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:20 AM • 2 Comments •
July 20, 2007
Category: Books
I am as excited for the new Harry Potter book as everyone else. I mean, come on, you want to see the end of even a bad movie, right? But Jane Galt echoes something that I have been thinking for...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:09 AM • 8 Comments •
July 18, 2007
Category: Drugs
Giancola and Corman wanted to know why drunks are more aggressive. The prevailing model to explain this effect is what is called the attentional allocation model wherein the alcohol inhibits an individual's ability to focus on a broad range of...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:57 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Religion
As an American living in Europe, I am at times accutely aware of the differing levels of religiosity between my country of origin and my current residence. But an article from this past weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 9:11 AM • 1 Comments •
July 17, 2007
Category: Healthcare
Ronald Bailey at Reason has an article about the costs of the FDA black box warning on antidepressants: Excessive caution is risky, too. Back in 1992, Congress, worried about the slow rate of approvals, passed legislation imposing FDA user fees...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:30 AM • 0 Comments •
July 14, 2007
Category: Economics
Anyone who has traveled in Europe before and after the introduction of the euro can appreciate how easy tourism is made by the common currency (haggling with the guys in money change booths was never my idea of vacation). But...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 6:30 PM • 7 Comments •
July 13, 2007
Category: Evolution
Scientists have just documented (another) inheritable change in a species that occurred in response to a change in the environment -- in this case a parasite. Hence they have observed the process of natural selection. In the latest issue of...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:22 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Prizes
The Nikon Small World photography competition is starting up for another year. Check out this year's competitors here (the winners have not been announced but you can rate them yourself). The competition includes beautiful micrographs such as the one below...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:55 AM • 1 Comments •
July 11, 2007
Category: Game Theory
One of the ways that scientists study human decision making is through the study of behavior in simple games -- loosely lumped into a field called game theory. Some of the most interesting and revealing findings involving such games is...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:14 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Funding
It's your money. An article in the Scientist deals with the financial returns for investments in research: Twenty-eight percent. This is the figure Edwin Mansfield, a now-deceased economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, obtained after wrestling with an army...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:12 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Ethics
Johnathan Wolff publishing in the Guardian cites the case of Naomi Oreskes as to why the equal time idea of journalism doesn't work for science: I learned to shut my mouth on the topic after hearing a lecture from a...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:23 AM • 5 Comments •
July 10, 2007
Category: Movies
Go to the Simpsons movie site and make your own. Here's mine. Hat-tip: Omni Brain....
Posted by Jake Young at 7:53 AM • 1 Comments •
July 9, 2007
Category: Intelligence
The story about two weeks ago that eldest children have a significantly higher IQ was really big news, but I didn't have time to talk about it then. Now, that I have had time to look at the articles about...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:11 PM • 5 Comments •
July 5, 2007
Category: Law
Thanks to Marginal Revolution for this astonishing story. It refers to a man who sued his wife's new lover for damages on the grounds that the new beau had alienated his wife from him. And the guy won! All Arthur...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:49 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Haha, a funny
Entitled Wikipedian Protestor Priceless......
Posted by Jake Young at 9:12 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Evolution
Actually that isn't fair. It isn't wrong. The percentage of difference just depends heavily on what you define as a difference. So argues an editorial by Jon Cohen in the latest issue of Science: Using novel yardsticks and the flood...
Posted by Jake Young at 8:56 AM • 2 Comments •
July 3, 2007
Category: Carnivals
Encephalon 26 is now up at the new and improved Neurophilosophy blog. Happily the Neurophilosopher has now joined Scienceblogs. Welcome!...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:52 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Game Theory
Rats show a type of "generalized" altruism: Rats that benefit from the charity of others are more likely to help strangers get a free meal, researchers have found. This phenomenon, known as 'generalized reciprocity', has only ever been seen before...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:47 AM • 4 Comments •
July 2, 2007
Category: Drugs
In 2004, the FDA assigned a "black box" warning on prescription of antidepressants to patients under 25. This was because of a flurry of anecdotal evidence linking the beginning of treatment with SSRIs to increases in suicide risk and because...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:29 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Libertarian politics
Brian Doherty from Reason has an interesting article on NY's place as a libertarian mecca: New York City is the celebrated center for many vital aspects of American culture: publishing, finance, and the arts. It rarely has been credited, however,...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:21 AM • 0 Comments •
