Now on ScienceBlogs: The Galaxy's Biggest Valentine
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.
Category: Neurodegenerative disease
The New Old Age blog at the NYTimes -- hadn't read it before, but I like it -- has a post about reversible causes of cognitive decline in the elderly. I think they make a really good point: there are...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 12:11 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Drugs
If you work in infectious diseases in a hospital -- or frankly if you work anywhere in a hospital -- the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a serious problem. You have to be constantly aware of what the right...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 1:49 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Drugs
In the Economist, they have a piece in "honor" of the 100th year anniversary of the first attempts to render drugs illegal. After looking at the evidence, they take a dim view of the drug war's effectiveness: A HUNDRED years...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 9:22 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Drugs
Radley Balko over at Reason summarizes the collateral damage that has been incurred in our nation's drug war. These casualties include police militarization, repeated foreign policy travesties (read: the entirety of Latin America has good reasons to hate us), the...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:55 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Ethics
PhRMA -- the association of pharmaceutical companies -- has agreed to a voluntary moratorium on drug paraphernalia given to doctors: Starting Jan. 1, the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to a voluntary moratorium on the kind of branded goodies -- Viagra...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 1:21 PM • 4 Comments •
Category: Neuroscience
I caught this article on ScienceDaily about the work of Professor Bart Hoebel at Princeton who has been attempting to show that sugar is an addictive substance like a drug. He presents data at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology meeting...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 8:43 PM • 12 Comments •
Category: Drugs
Drug companies are not publishing all the trial data that they submit to the FDA, and those trials that are published are more likely to show positive results. Rising et al. compared all the New Drug Applications (NDAs) (the vehicle...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:57 AM • 2 Comments •
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 NotoriousLTP at 12:10 PM • 9 Comments •
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 NotoriousLTP at 9:56 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Drugs
There was a very sad article in the NYTimes about the regular practice in some long-term care facilities of treating demented patients with anti-psychotic medications like Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa: The use of antipsychotic drugs to tamp down the agitation,...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:57 AM • 11 Comments •
