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.
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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young 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 Jake Young at 10:52 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Science politics
Many scientifically-inclined voters were a bit shocked by McCain's comment criticizing Obama for supporting a "3 million dollar earmark for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago." The "overhead projector" in question was actually a top of the line...
Posted by Jake Young at 10:51 AM • 7 Comments •
October 13, 2008
Category: Drugs
John Tierney reports this shocking revelation: our marijuana control doesn't work and no one -- particularly the government -- wants to admit it. Now that the first five years' results are available, the campaign can officially be called a failure,...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:10 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Publishing and Journals
Neal Young, John Ioannidis, and Omar Al-Ubaydli have an article in PLoS suggesting that because the emphasis in scientific publishing is too much on the big positive results in the big journal, many results are going to be wrong. (Remember...
Posted by Jake Young at 12:01 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Economics
The 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics goes to Paul Krugman "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity". I think this will come as a surprise to many, particularly since he's winning it alone. Most economists guessed...
Posted by Kara Contreary at 7:15 AM • 0 Comments •
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