Now on ScienceBlogs: Oh, no! School wi-fi is making our kids sick! (2012 edition)
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: Perception
There is a fascinating case study in Current Biology. de Gelder et al. discuss a patient -- referred to as TN to protect his privacy -- who had two sequential strokes that damaged his brain. The parts of the brain...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 6:21 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
I have been reading more on the Natasha Richardson story overnight, and it appears the story has moved into blame-placing mode. (For the original discussion of the story, read this.) Possible places to lay the blame (that I have read...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 1:00 PM • 17 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
So I am way behind the news cycle on this, but I wanted to comment briefly on actress Natasha Richardson's death as a result of an epidural hematoma. From everything I read, she seemed like a very good actress, a...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 3:06 PM • 13 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
I caught this story (with an accompanying video) over at Mind Hacks and Neuron Culture about this poor woman from the UK who fell unconscious from a viral infection in her brain stem. Using fMRI, a doctor at Cambridge named...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 1:51 PM • 7 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
There was a case like Terry Schiavo's in Italy that is triggering a genuine constitutional crisis. Eluana Englaro, who had been on a feeding tube in a persistent vegetative state, for 17 years passed away last night after her father...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 9:27 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
Researchers at Boston University have done an autopsy on another former football player and found evidence of severe neurological damage that would likely lead to dementia later in life: Leading medical experts at the Center for the Study of Traumatic...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 10:43 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
I don't know if everyone caught this in the news, but Senator Edward Kennedy has been diagnosed with a glioma. Regardless of one's politics, this is a real bum rap, and my deepest sympathy goes out to him and his...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:36 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Neurological disease
CNN has a story about a Navy neurologist who tried using mirrors to help soldiers from Iraq with phantom pain. Phantom pain is pain in amputees that is perceived to originate in the amputated limb. What causes it is not...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 8:41 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: Art
The NYTimes has a slide show of "migraine" art provided by Oliver Sacks from his book Migraine. They attempt to illustrate what a migraine aura looks like. Neat. I would put one up on my wall if I didn't feel...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 11:29 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Neuroscience
In neuroscience, we spend a lot of time studying the normal function of the nervous system, and we spend a lot of time studying disease processes that can impair this function. What we don't typically do is study how functional...
Posted by NotoriousLTP at 9:51 AM • 0 Comments •
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
ERV 11.26.2011
Jason Rosenhouse 02.12.2012
PZ Myers 02.02.2012
Orac 12.12.2011
