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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Funding:
NIH has agreed to some suggestions from advisory panels about how to change the grant peer review process: One year ago, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni asked external and internal advisory panels for advice on how to cope with a record...
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Posted on June 9, 2008 1:11 PM • 2 Comments •
Well, that's good: Medical scientists just starting at universities have been, more and more often, left empty-handed when the federal government awards grants. So on Monday the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to medical research, announced a...
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Posted on March 11, 2008 3:33 PM • 1 Comments •
.5%. Woohoo! High fives all around! It is going to be another year of suck for NIH spending. The omnibus spending bill that has been passed by the House and Senate and is expected to be ratified by the President...
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Posted on December 20, 2007 7:39 PM • 6 Comments •
OK, so I am going to go on a tiny rant. Forgive me. I would just like to thank President Bush for vetoing the omnibus spending bill that includes the NIH budget. Because it is not like any of us...
Posted on November 14, 2007 4:30 PM • 5 Comments •
An article in Science discusses the physician-scientist program (or MD-PhD) and the trouble in maintaining people in the basic sciences. Basically, most MD-PhDs say when they finish the program that they would like to remain researchers in some capacity, but...
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Posted on September 10, 2007 10:38 AM • 7 Comments •
If you haven't read this post by Matthew Nisbet at Framing Science, you really, really should. It shows how framing scientific issues in terms of jobs and economic competitiveness is much more likely to pass funding bills: As I've noted...
Posted on August 13, 2007 11:22 AM • 0 Comments •
It's your money. An article in the Scientist deals with the financial returns for investments in research: Twenty-eight percent. This is the figure Edwin Mansfield, a now-deceased economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, obtained after wrestling with an army...
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Posted on July 11, 2007 11:12 AM • 1 Comments •
Excellent analysis from an article in Science on the recent funding woes (sadly behind a subscription wall). Money quote: Meanwhile, research institutions everywhere were breaking ground on new facilities and expanding their faculty. In a 2002 survey, AAMC found that...
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Posted on April 23, 2007 10:03 AM • 3 Comments •
I have talked about funding a couple of times (here and here), and I get the impression from the comments about those posts that my views are at the minimum somewhat iconoclastic. Basically, while I would prefer the government to...
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Posted on April 17, 2007 11:18 AM • 3 Comments •
Ronald Bailey at Reason has an interesting theory: Federal funding drives out private funding for research resulting in a net loss (or at least no change) for researchers. His best example is what has happened during the ban on Federal...
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Posted on January 24, 2007 1:02 PM • 7 Comments •
