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.
September 28, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
I don't catch the Onion much anymore, but this is just priceless: Top physicists from several major American universities appeared before a Congressional committee Monday to request $50 billion for a science thing that would further U.S. advancement science-wise and...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:43 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Economics
Socrates gave us the foundation of modern philosophy when he claimed that his only wisdom was in knowing his own ignorance. By implication, of course, everyone else was even stupider than he and just didn't know it, believing they were...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 1:20 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Biology
The Scientist has a wonderful article about complimentarity in biology. Complimentarity is the application of two or more different theoretical approaches to a single problem: "Light and Life" is perhaps best known for its focus on Bohr's concept of complementarity....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:43 AM • 1 Comments •
September 26, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Here's a quote of the day for you by Katie Glasrud, writing at Pharyngula: That fumble in the fourth quarter? You just dropped it didn't you. It looks like you've had a lot of testosterone-dropping moments this season, and I...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:41 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Obesity and Heart Disease
A speculative theory about how wealth relates to the rates of obesity and what this means for policy
Posted by Jake Young at 2:36 PM • 22 Comments •
September 24, 2007
Category: Other People's Work
Encephalon 32 is up at Living the Scientific Life. The Chernobyl reactor will be encased in a huge steel arch. This business sounds suspiciously similar to the Simpsons movie....
Posted by Jake Young at 2:59 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Reproduction, Birth Control, and Abortion Politics
The US government spends millions domestically and billions internationally on abstinence-only education with the intent of lowering the transmission of STIs such as HIV and limiting unwanted pregnancies. Yet abstinence-only education is demonstrably ineffective. The alternative called abstinence-plus education clearly...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:56 PM • 12 Comments •
September 21, 2007
Category: Video Games
Video games of late have gotten crazy complicated. Making life-like characters and realistic worlds is an incredible computational challenge. Popular Science lists the 10 Biggest Challenges in video game production, and number 4 struck my eye: 4. Artificial Intelligence Like...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:06 AM • 1 Comments •
September 20, 2007
Category: Synapses
3D reconstruction shows the tethering of synaptic vesicles
Posted by Jake Young at 12:08 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Medicine
The British, innovators in casual medicine
Posted by Jake Young at 9:51 AM • 3 Comments •
September 18, 2007
Category: Language
In which a boy wakes up after an infection with a new accent.
Posted by Jake Young at 11:02 AM • 3 Comments •
September 17, 2007
Category: Atheism
Last week, I posted a long argument for why I believe pairing science and atheism is a poor strategic choice for scientists. The response to that article has I think been largely positive, but I do want to address the...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:21 AM • 29 Comments •
September 14, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Why must scientists play with salmons' heads like this: Researchers have succeeded in making salmon couples give birth to trout -- using a technique that they argue could help to preserve rare species of fish. Goro Yoshizaki and his colleagues...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:37 PM • 2 Comments •
September 12, 2007
Category: Science politics
In 1922, John Dewey, pragmatist philosopher and champion of Progressive education, wrote an article in The New Republic entitled "The American Intellectual Frontier." The subject was William Jennings Bryan's attack on evolution that would later culminate in the Scopes...
Posted by Jake Young at 3:34 PM • 69 Comments •
Category: Economics
The Fraser Institute has put out its annual report on Economic Freedom of the World -- a score and rank measuring "the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries support economic freedom". It's basically a rundown of countries...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 10:29 AM • 5 Comments •
September 11, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
From the always excellent xkcd (click to enlarge): Someday, someday I will meet a woman who loves the fact that I like to graph. There is important stuff out there that needs to be correlated -- like the amount of...
Posted by Jake Young at 3:27 PM • 12 Comments •
September 10, 2007
Category: Funding
An article in Science discusses the physician-scientist program (or MD-PhD) and the trouble in maintaining people in the basic sciences. Basically, most MD-PhDs say when they finish the program that they would like to remain researchers in some capacity, but...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:38 AM • 7 Comments •
September 9, 2007
Category: Philosophy
Who knew anybody, much less the Economist had an opinion on whether or not Belgium should exist? One question: if Belgium goes through a 'velvet' divorce, who gets custody of the chocolate?...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 2:03 PM • 3 Comments •
September 7, 2007
Category: Quotes
Megan McArdle: I am not fighting for the Bush tax cuts; I'm fighting the notion that people who are in favor of tax cuts are all a bunch of liars or loonie tunes. Politicians in favor of tax cuts are...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:53 AM • 1 Comments •
September 6, 2007
Category: Other People's Work
Beer pong is now industrial: These guys aren't exactly Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. But Messrs. Wright and Johnson, both 22 years old, are part of a new wave of young people trying to make money tapping into their peers'...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:24 AM • 0 Comments •
September 5, 2007
Category: Music
Rock stars die young from *gasp* drugs and alcohol.
Posted by Jake Young at 10:02 AM • 7 Comments •
September 4, 2007
Category: Evolution
The issue of sympatric speciation -- or how to separate species emerge from a single species without geographic isolation -- is a contentious issue in evolutionary biology. How can two species emerge without reproductive isolation of two separate groups? Wouldn't...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:19 AM • 3 Comments •
