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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC getting a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience. He holds a BS and MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. If a volcano were to erupt Pompei-style in Central Park, his body would be preserved in a scoliotic posture over his lab desk. Archeaologists would later conclude that he spent most of his day training rats to perform tricks, until he went blind building electrical equipment by hand using a dissecting microscope. But, still, he died happy...because science is cool.
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.
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. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments I currently attend or attended in the past.
October 31, 2008
Category: Obesity and Heart Disease
This Sunday you are slightly less likely to have a heart attack. Swedish researchers, publishing in the NEJM, looked at a registry of heart attacks from 1987 to 2006. They found that the incidence of heart attacks slightly increases for...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 9:37 AM • 1 Comments •
October 24, 2008
Category: Ethics
A survey of American internists and rheumatologists has revealed that over 50% of them regularly prescribe placebos. Tilburt et al. surveyed internists and rheumatologists to see whether they were prescribing placebos, and if so how and what kind they were...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 10:51 AM • 16 Comments •
October 23, 2008
Category: Healthcare
Whenever you are having a debate -- particularly a policy debate -- it is always important to check your premises. That is why I found this article in the Journal of the American Medical Association refreshing. Emergency Department utilization is...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:28 PM • 3 Comments •
October 21, 2008
Category: Neural interfaces
I am a little late to this party, but I do want to talk about this paper in Nature Neuroscience. Moritz et al. implanted an electrode into a monkey's motor cortex. The electrode was designed to only record from a...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:03 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Economics
I have been a bit lax on the blogging, but here is what I have been reading on the economy. Tyler Cowen attributes the financial bubble to three main causes: The current financial crisis comes from a conjunction of three...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:26 AM • 0 Comments •
October 16, 2008
Category: Technology
Lawrence Lessig, co-founder of Creative Commons, writes in the WSJ in defense of piracy -- or more aptly the culture of remixing of which blogging is certainly a part: The return of this "remix" culture could drive extraordinary economic growth,...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:39 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Ethics
Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel and psychologist Fiery Cushman have designed a moral sense test. The test poses scenarios and asks you to evaluate the relative morality or immorality of different actions. The purpose of the test for the researchers is to...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:16 PM • 6 Comments •
October 15, 2008
Category: Neuroscience
The scientific process is composed of generating hypotheses and testing those hypotheses through experiment. Yet we don't know a whole lot about how about hypothesis generation happens on the level of the brain. Recognizing that I am dealing with a...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 2:35 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Politics
An article at RealClearPolitics of interest to those living in the Southwest. (I am looking at you, Mom and Dad.) Political observers agree that, like in the Northeast, Democrats have made gains because they have broadened their coalition to include...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 1:14 PM • 2 Comments •
October 14, 2008
Category: Haha, a funny
Kara showed me this clip when I was in London, and it is too funny not to share. It is of British comedian James Sherwood detailing his "rules of songwriting."...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 10:52 AM • 1 Comments •
