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 31, 2008
Category: Gender
Sorry for the light blogging everyone. It has been a busy, busy week. Some of you may have caught Janet Hyde's latest paper looking at data from the No Child Left Behind Act and math performance in the US. Under...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:50 AM • 9 Comments •
July 28, 2008
Category: Carnivals
Just a heads up. Next week on August 5th (Tuesday) I will be hosting the illustrious medicine carnival Grand Rounds. (Has it been a year and a half since I did this last? Jeez I have been doing this forever...)...
Posted by Jake Young at 2:52 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Sports Doping
Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France yesterday, but the whole race has been marred by incidents of sports doping. First, Riccardo Ricco was caught using a form of Epo called CERA. Now another biker named Dmitriy Fofonov tested positive...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:14 AM • 6 Comments •
July 24, 2008
Category: Sports Doping
People have been asking me about Riccardo Ricco, the Italian cyclist who was thrown out of the Tour de France for testing positive for the hormone erythropoietin (Epo), so I want to do a little Q&A about Epo detection and...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:56 AM • 6 Comments •
July 22, 2008
Category: Other People's Work
We were discussing game theory and the Dark Knight. Mike at The Quantitative Peace has an excellent post that discusses all the possible iterations: I think this calls for a new villian in the third movie of the trilogy: The...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:56 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Blogging
Have you ever said any of the following? 1) That Jake fellah (or other ScienceBlogger) has insightful things to say. By Heaven, I would like to meet him and discuss said insights. 2) That Jake fellah (or other ScienceBlogger) is...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:47 AM • 1 Comments •
July 21, 2008
Category: Movies
I suspect that many of you got a chance to see The Dark Knight movie this weekend. Just as an aside, I will say that I thought that the movie was sweet. Definitely the best Batman movie, maybe one of...
Posted by Jake Young at 4:02 PM • 87 Comments •
July 16, 2008
Category: Neuroscience
Temporal discounting is our tendency to want things now rather than later. In order to encourage us to save money, banks have to offer us a reward in the form of an interest rate. In order to delay gratification, we...
Posted by Jake Young at 9:59 AM • 8 Comments •
July 15, 2008
Category: Movies
Happy Sizzle Day! Today numerous bloggers from ScienceBlogs and elsewhere will be reviewing a new movie Sizzle directed by Randy Olson of Flock of Dodos fame. Sizzle is a documentary/mockumentary/comedy partly about the science of global warming, but more in...
Posted by Jake Young at 5:04 AM • 2 Comments •
July 9, 2008
Category: Economics
One of the difficult things about economics is that you can't really see an economy develop from scratch. There is no visible State of Nature. All you see is the continuous process. In that light, here is a very interesting...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:33 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Nutrition
Kenneth Chang, guest-blogging at TeirneyLab, laments the use of the word "organic" in both the contexts of organic chemistry and as a term for natural foods: Organic derives from Greek, organikos. The original meaning was, logically, something related to an...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:07 PM • 7 Comments •
July 8, 2008
Category: Economics
At least someone is benefiting from the economic stimulus package: An unforeseen and surprising beneficiary of the Economic Stimulus Plan, a plan that George Bush contends will "boost our economy and encourage job creation," has surfaced this week. An independent...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:21 PM • 2 Comments •
July 7, 2008
Category: Gender
I often rant about bad coverage of the psychology of sex differences, so it is always satisfying to see an article that really has their facts straight. Amanda Schaffer and Emily Bazelon, writing in Slate, have an excellent article reviewing...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:50 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Neuroscience
Human beings use stereotyped facial expressions to identify the feelings of others. We can tell what another person is feeling in part because of how their face looks. However, this says very little about why the particular changes in facial...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:48 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Haha, a funny
Found in an abstract: The medial PFC, as well as the ventral tegmental area, also seem to participate in the generation of pelvic thrusting....
Posted by Jake Young at 11:19 AM • 1 Comments •
July 2, 2008
Category: Nature vs. Nuture
Publishing in Science, Gormley et al. compared the benefits of Oklahoma's TPS pre-K program to Head Start. Conclusion: preschool matters in cognitive development. Early childhood education programs in the United States face enormous challenges. The overwhelming majority of Head Start...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:55 AM • 1 Comments •
July 1, 2008
Category: Gender
New York Magazine has an interesting article about fertility in Europe. Most European countries have a huge fertility problem. Since they have gone through the demographic transition, their populations are actually declining. Many do not have the relatively liberal immigration...
Posted by Jake Young at 1:30 PM • 2 Comments •
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