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.
February 29, 2008
Category: Technology
That is amazing: The basis of the 2x4-inch "Digital Tattoo Interface" is a Bluetooth device made of thin, flexible silicon and silicone. It's inserted through a small incision as a tightly rolled tube, and then it unfurls beneath the skin...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:10 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Game Theory
Jay Cost at RCP uses a prisoner's dilemma game to show why the absense of institutional structures is likely to yield a socially inefficient result in the Democratic primaries. He looks at the super delegates' behavior in terms of what...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:01 AM • 0 Comments •
February 28, 2008
Category: Space
...literally: Scientists are priming two spacecraft to slam into the moon's South Pole to see if the lunar double whammy reveals hidden water ice. The Earth-on-moon violence may raise eyebrows, but NASA's history shows that such missions can yield extremely...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:23 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Language
Language Log details the results of this fascinating experiment. The researcher was looking at second language acquisition, and in order to have a control she tested the native-speakers on the gender of particular words in French. The assumption would be...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:11 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Neuroscience
We have all heard about the runner's high, and a great many of us have felt it. When you are running a marathon, about an hour or two in you feel a feeling of euphoria right like you could run...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:59 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Economics
This is just for Kara. A really common textbook for introductory economics classes is Greg Mankiw's. In the first chapter, he lists 10 principles of economics. This guy has translated them into terms lay people can understand. Heads up: people...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:47 AM • 0 Comments •
February 27, 2008
Category: Psychology
It has been a big month for talking about the demographic transition here at Pure Pedantry. (See here and here.) Ronald Bailey at Reason had this interesting article speculating why people choose to have less children: children don't make you...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:00 PM • 4 Comments •
February 26, 2008
Category: Neural interfaces
Doctors at the University of Navarra have implanted an auditory brainstem implant (ABI) in the youngest patient ever attempted -- a 13 month-old girl: A team of ear, nose and throat specialists and neurosurgeons at the University Hospital of Navarra,...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:08 PM • 0 Comments •
February 25, 2008
Category: Space
Well, that's good. The military successfully shot down a satellite whose decaying orbit brought up concerns that it might crash into...you know...something besides water. It had about a half ton of a compound called hydrazine that is explosive and toxic....
Posted by Jake Young at 3:26 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Academia
Stanley Fish of the NYTimes Think Again blog has some interesting things to say about the appointment of Bruce Benson, oil magnate and Republican activist, to be president of the University of Colorado at Boulder. The appointment raised eyebrows and...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:14 PM • 4 Comments •
February 22, 2008
Category: Friday Rants
Over for the last week I have been mulling whether I want to continue doing Friday Rants, and I have come to the conclusion that I think I going to end the whole business. It is not that they aren't...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:41 AM • 4 Comments •
February 21, 2008
Category: Education
I remember when I was studying for Step I of the medical Boards. Step I is the first of three very large tests that you have to take to become a doctor. This first test comprises everything you learn in...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:07 AM • 7 Comments •
February 20, 2008
Category: Reproduction, Birth Control, and Abortion Politics
The demographic transition -- the tendency for richer societies to have fewer rather than more children -- is, I think, most often attributed to social causes. For a variety of reasons -- because each child costs more, because they are...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:25 AM • 3 Comments •
February 19, 2008
Category: Carnivals
The reignited Encephalon is up at Sharp Brains. The next Encephalon is being hosted on March 3rd at Mind Hacks. Email encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com to submit....
Posted by Jake Young at 12:18 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Healthcare
Much is made by politicians about the benefits of preventive medicine. Politicians often treat preventive medicine like it can perform fiscal magic, causing health care expenditure to evaporate. The reality is that some preventive medicine is cost-effective and some of...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:11 PM • 0 Comments •
February 18, 2008
Category: Medicine
In honor of President's day I have some interesting Presidential pathology to present. I want to talk about Andrew Jackson and his myriad of diseases. To say that Andrew Jackson had medical problems would be the understatement of the century....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:22 AM • 1 Comments •
Happy President's Day! I've heard about these "holidays." Apparently they are days when people with real jobs don't have to go to work. Fascinating stuff. Someday I hope to have a job like that. A Canadian friend of mine also...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:15 AM • 0 Comments •
February 15, 2008
Category: Friday Rants
I haven't been in a large lecture for a while, but this semester I decided to take a course in introductory economics at a local community college for my own enrichment. The experience has reminded me why I was so...
Posted by Jake Young at 8:36 AM • 14 Comments •
February 14, 2008
Category: Cell Biology
You have got to see this video. Sakaue-Sawano et al. may have created the coolest molecular biology video I have ever seen. They developed a system of reporters to watch the cells transition between the different stages of the cell...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:18 PM • 4 Comments •
February 13, 2008
Category: Economics
I don't know if I mentioned this but I am taking a course in introductory economics in my spare time. (Just because I love econ so much!) Anyway, this is probably a bore for the economists out there (since it...
Posted by Jake Young at 3:20 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Sex
Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson imagines that they may have. As she writes, there are scant signals cluing us in to the sexual life of the male T. Rex. Did he have a penis? Or perhaps just a cloaca, which avians,...
Posted by Kate at 9:31 AM • 3 Comments •
February 12, 2008
Category: Carnivals
You may remember Encephalon, a biweekly neuroscience carnival, that we used to participate in regularly. Well, it kind of lapsed there for a bit because the organizer, Mo, was very understandably busy with other things. Sharp Brains has graciously agreed...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:03 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Science politics
Important Announcement #1: ScienceDebate2008 is actually going to happen. Here is the press release: ScienceDebate2008.com, the citizens initiative calling for a presidential debate on science and technology policy, today announced that it has formally invited the presidential candidates to a...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:45 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Ethics
The NYTimes published two articles about abortion in the last couple days. The first was a review by William Saletan of the book Embryo, A Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen. The second was an...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:33 AM • 8 Comments •
February 11, 2008
Category: Economics
Economics: is there anything it can't do? Here are some economists speculating about why long distance relationships fail. Their answer: too much money. Instead, says Mr. Cowen, people in long-distance relationships may spend more money than local lovebirds. How is...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:04 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: Learning and Memory
In behavioral neuroscience, we use a lot of animal models. We assume that these animal models have features that are the same or similar to features of humans. However, it is always reassuring when someone gets around to proving that...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:43 PM • 1 Comments •
February 8, 2008
Category: Friday Rants
People, you suck. When I was younger (and less of a calloused bastard), I was willing to believe that human beings' pernicious behavior was restricted to particular unsavory individuals or select groups. Likewise, I would write off unscrupulous behavior as...
Posted by Jake Young at 8:29 AM • 9 Comments •
February 7, 2008
Category: Sex
A post on kissing by fellow SciBling Sheril caught my eye, and I figured, why not pick a friendly argument as my inaugural post at Pure Pedantry (sorry, Jake). She pointed out a recent SciAm writeup summarizing work by a...
Posted by Kate at 4:45 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Medicine
I completely agree with this public service announcement at MDOD: if you have the flu, do not go to the emergency room. The flu is caused by a virus. There is nothing the doctor in the ER can do to...
Posted by Jake Young at 11:02 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Drugs
The results from Heath Ledger's autopsy came out today. Though the doses of the drugs have not been released, it appears that he died from combining drugs with similar effects rather than an overdose of a single drug: Among the...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:42 AM • 9 Comments •
February 6, 2008
Category: Herbal remedies and other Hooey
My rant last Friday about Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) promoted a vigorous discussion, and I am happy about that. That ambivalence about CAM in even the scientific community is an interesting issue in and of itself. Several commenters criticized...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:07 PM • 7 Comments •
February 5, 2008
Category: Aging and Longevity
The average age of the world population is getting older, and this is very likely to have serious social and economic consequences in the countries and regions where it is most severe. However, I feel like this is very rarely...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:17 PM • 7 Comments •
February 4, 2008
Category: Neuroscience
How is tool use encoded in the brain? Most movements involving tools involve the complex manipulation of objects in space, and it is possible that they could represented in the brain in this way -- i.e. as objects in space....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:39 AM • 3 Comments •
February 1, 2008
Category: Herbal remedies and other Hooey
Complementary and alternative medicine has no business participating in mainstream science or medicine....
Posted by Jake Young at 8:51 AM • 13 Comments •
