Reality is always more complicated than you think.
Profile
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.
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Poems:
A Book Of Music by Jack Spicer Coming at an end, the lovers Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where Did it end? There is no telling. No love is Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries...
Posted on January 21, 2008 4:35 PM • 1 Comments •
The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden (To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the...
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Posted on January 15, 2008 10:45 AM • 0 Comments •
Canto XIV by Ezra Pound Io venni in luogo d'ogni luce muto; The stench of wet coal, politicians . . . . . . . . . . e and. . . . . n, their wrists bound to their...
Posted on January 10, 2008 10:28 AM • 0 Comments •
The Bistro Styx by Rita Dove She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness as she paused just inside the double glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape billowing dramatically behind her. What's this, I thought, lifting a hand until...
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Posted on March 11, 2007 1:38 PM • 0 Comments •
When Ecstasy is Inconvenient by Lorine Niedecker Feign a great calm; all gay transport soon ends. Chant: who knows -- flight's end or flight's beginning for the resting gull? Heart, be still. Say there is money but it rusted; say...
Posted on March 4, 2007 11:36 AM • 0 Comments •
The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy "Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin!...
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Posted on February 19, 2007 9:04 AM • 0 Comments •
In Memory of Sigmund Freud by W.H. Auden When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed to the critique of a whole epoch the frailty of our conscience and...
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Posted on February 12, 2007 9:06 AM • 1 Comments •
(That would be Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., not Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. -- the Supreme Court Justice.) Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man by Oliver Wendell Holmes Oh, there are times When all this fret and tumult that we hear...
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Posted on February 5, 2007 9:23 AM • 0 Comments •
The Age Demanded by Ernest Miller Hemingway The age demanded that we sing And cut away our tongue. The age demanded that we flow And hammered in the bung. The age demanded that we dance And jammed us into iron...
Posted on January 28, 2007 10:14 AM • 0 Comments •
The Labyrinth by W.H. Auden Anthropos apteros for days Walked whistling round and round the Maze, Relying happily upon His temperament for getting on. The hundredth time he sighted, though, A bush he left an hour ago, He halted where...
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Posted on January 22, 2007 12:59 AM • 0 Comments •
The Hymn of a Fat Woman by Joyce Huff All of the saints starved themselves. Not a single fat one. The words "deity" and "diet" must have come from the same Latin root. Those saints must have been thin as...
Posted on January 15, 2007 3:22 PM • 0 Comments •
Two poems for this week because they are short. Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I...
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Posted on January 6, 2007 9:21 AM • 1 Comments •
Cartoon Physics, part 1 by Nick Flynn Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know that the universe is ever-expanding, inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies swallowed by galaxies, whole solar systems collapsing, all of it acted out in silence. At ten...
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Posted on January 2, 2007 10:36 AM • 0 Comments •
Poem of the Week is a bit late because of the holiday, but I think it is worth it. The World Is a Beautiful Place by Lawrence Ferlinghetti The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you...
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Posted on December 28, 2006 8:51 AM • 1 Comments •
In honor of the holidays, here is a poem by Robert Frost. My English teacher in high school used to have this theory that this poem is actually about Santa Claus. Look closely and you will catch the references. Stopping...
Posted on December 17, 2006 9:52 AM • 0 Comments •
You know the story of Persephone right. Here is a clever poem about it by Louise Gluck. A Myth of Devotion by Louise Gluck When Hades decided he loved this girl he built for her a duplicate of earth, everything...
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Posted on December 11, 2006 10:44 AM • 1 Comments •
To His Coy Mistress By Andrew Marvell Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian...
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Posted on December 3, 2006 3:17 AM • 2 Comments •
This poem is not for children. This is an adult poem for adults -- and possibly mature, sophisticated teenagers. (In some ways it makes me wish my parents did not read this site, but I will get over that.) As...
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Posted on November 26, 2006 12:47 PM • 0 Comments •
Relationships -- they are a messy business. These two go out to someone who knows that better than most. Safe Sex by Donald Hall If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident they will not meet...
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Posted on November 19, 2006 10:55 PM • 0 Comments •
I have a lot of friends applying to medical school right now (the saddest part is that they are likely to finish before me). In honor of the medical school secondary essay -- a veritable autobiography in most cases, here...
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Posted on November 15, 2006 10:37 PM • 0 Comments •
In the upcoming election, immigration is likely to be a big issue. The wisdom and expanse of legal immigration notwithstanding -- I tend to favor the widest possible on both humanitarian and economic grounds -- it is good to remember...
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Posted on November 5, 2006 11:19 PM • 0 Comments •
Keeping in my continuing theme of interspersing a little humanities with my sciences -- I never was a kid who needed their food separated -- here is your poem of the week, Langston Hughes' Theme for English B. A little...
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Posted on October 28, 2006 4:42 PM • 0 Comments •
I like posting poems from time to time. They remind me that at one point I had an interior life that did not involve anxiety over tissue culture. Anyway, the poem of the week is by Billy Collins, a personal...
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Posted on October 22, 2006 11:50 PM • 0 Comments •
My head hurts. I am sitting in a crappy slide session of limited personal relevance, trying vainly to find something fascinating in the injection of morpholino oligos into Xenopus. Two complete yo-yos are talking really loudly behind me. Let's have...
Posted on October 16, 2006 1:56 PM • 0 Comments •
...it is one of my favorites. Snow The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was Spawning snow and pink roses against it Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: World is suddener than we fancy it. World is crazier and more...
Posted on August 10, 2006 7:57 PM • 0 Comments •
Apparently today will be poetry day. I found this poem in a book I was reading. It is by a man named Mortimer Collins (1860): Life and the Universe show spontaneity: Down with ridiculous notions of Deity! Churches and creeds...
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Posted on July 14, 2006 1:34 PM • 4 Comments •
This week's Ask a Scienceblogger is as follows: Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection?... In response, I hath composed the following: An Ode to the Cuter Mammals If I were Noah, roused from...
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Posted on July 13, 2006 9:30 PM • 0 Comments •
