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.
November 29, 2007
Category: Ethics
I wrote earlier today about mercury and autism, and how I thought a criticism of an earlier paper on statistical grounds was fair. Some of the commentors including Orac took me to task saying that the original analysis was indeed...
Posted by Jake Young at 7:29 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Autism
I was struck by this paper that came out in the Journal of Child Neurology, looking back at previous study of mercury levels in autistic children. DeSoto and Hitlan looked back at Ip et al. 2004, a case control study...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:37 AM • 8 Comments •
November 28, 2007
Category: Genetics
Wang et al., publishing in PLoS Genetics, looked at the genetic diversity in Native American populations from Canada all the way down into South America. They wanted to see whether the genetic diversity observed in Native peoples correlated in any...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:56 AM • 5 Comments •
November 26, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Having a ball pit in your living room may be expensive, but it is still totally awesome. Comic from xkcd....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:56 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Alzheimer's
You look away from a field for two seconds, and they get all crazy on you... I used to do only molecular biology focusing primarily on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. Since I moved to a lab that studies behavior, I...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:52 AM • 0 Comments •
November 19, 2007
Category: Ethics
Revere has spoken out in support of Michael Siegel at The Rest of the Story. Dr. Siegel is a public health specialist that focuses on among other things the effects of second-hand smoke. Siegel took Action for Smoking and Health...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:14 PM • 9 Comments •
November 16, 2007
Category: Neuroscience
I wrote before about how there has been a bit of a debate about whether the hippocampus is involved in encoding spatial maps or is involved more generally in relational memory. Well, the argument for general relational memory just got...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:06 PM • 1 Comments •
November 14, 2007
Category: Funding
OK, so I am going to go on a tiny rant. Forgive me. I would just like to thank President Bush for vetoing the omnibus spending bill that includes the NIH budget. Because it is not like any of us...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:30 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Public Health
Yay us? More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year -- the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday. "A new U.S. record," said Dr. John M....
Posted by Jake Young at 4:18 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Healthcare
(I am going to try not to go on a big rant here; we'll see how well that goes.) Jonathan Cohn wrote an article in The New Republic looking at one of the critiques of universal health care: that it...
Posted by Jake Young at 3:04 PM • 5 Comments •
November 13, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Someone who really should know better sent me the video below the fold. The best thing about this video is the content. The second best thing about it is the horrifically bad British accents the actors are putting on....
Posted by Kara Contreary at 3:44 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Medical Marijuana
In a collaboration with Reason magazine, Drew Carey has released a video defending the free availability of marijuana for medical purposes. Click here to see it. Money quote: "Smell that smell. That's the smell of freedom."...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:57 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Women's Health
Heidi Ledford at Nature covers a recent presentation at the American Heart Association of data showing that oral contraceptive use increases the amount of plaques in women's arteries over years of use. This is part of several studies that have...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:41 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Sex
Hybrids are sort-of a mystery in evolutionary biology. In the strictest sense, they shouldn't exist because the offspring are often sterile or reproductively impaired. It is to a species evolutionary benefit to limit the number of hybrid offspring in most...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:00 PM • 3 Comments •
November 8, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Working on for scienceblogs.com, I would say that I receive more interesting emails than the average person. Most of these emails are legitimate such as offers to send me books to read, and those are always appreciated. Some of the...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:57 PM • 16 Comments •
November 6, 2007
Category: Medicine
I don't know if people heard about this, but a participant in the Olympic trials prior to the NY marathon died suddenly: A triumphant United States Olympic trials marathon turned somber yesterday morning when Ryan Shay, a 28-year-old veteran marathoner,...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:27 PM • 11 Comments •
November 5, 2007
Category: Haha, a funny
Times Online details 10 of the most bizarre experiments ever devised. I rather doubt some of these would have made it past institutional review today: 7) Turkey turn-ons Martin Schein and Edgar Hale, of Pennsylvania State University, devoted themselves to...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:07 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Quotes
Dark matter has worked its way into political cliche: Rosenbaum's Political Physics: Do you ever sense there is some large mass of dark matter, an unseen Scandal Star, the gravitational pull of which is warping the coverage of what seems,...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:04 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Statistics
Giuliani cites some bogus statistics. Kerfuffle ensues. (This article includes actual statistics to prove a point about complexity.)
Posted by Jake Young at 11:09 AM • 7 Comments •
November 2, 2007
Category: Neuroscience
The most elaborate imaging technique ever involves two-photon fluorescent microscopy and a mouse on a floating styrofoam ball.
Posted by Jake Young at 4:02 PM • 6 Comments •
