purepedantry | February 28, 2008Language Log details the results of this fascinating experiment. The researcher was looking at second language acquisition, and in order to have a control she tested the native-speakers on the gender of particular words in French.
The assumption would be the native-speakers would all agree on the gender of the words, but she found that among the native-speaking teenagers native speakers -- and to a greater degree among teenagers -- there was widespread disagreement:
Ayoun was investigating second-language learning of grammatical gender in French -- a major difficulty for learners from non-…
purepedantry | February 28, 2008We have all heard about the runner's high, and a great many of us have felt it. When you are running a marathon, about an hour or two in you feel a feeling of euphoria right like you could run forever. Of course you can't, but you don't feel that way. (In my case the runner's high immediately precedes the runner's heart attack.)
It is still not entirely clear what causes the runner's high, but Boecker et al. have taken a big step in explaining it using PET scanning.
The prevailing theory is that the runner's high is caused by endorphins. Endorphins are endogenous opioid…
purepedantry | February 28, 2008This is just for Kara. A really common textbook for introductory economics classes is Greg Mankiw's. In the first chapter, he lists 10 principles of economics.
This guy has translated them into terms lay people can understand. Heads up: people are stupid. Just so you know what to expect... (video below fold)
Hat-tip: Megan McArdle
purepedantry | February 27, 2008It has been a big month for talking about the demographic transition here at Pure Pedantry. (See here and here.) Ronald Bailey at Reason had this interesting article speculating why people choose to have less children: children don't make you happy. If economic security no longer requires having children and they don't make you happy, why have them? To wit:
"Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people's overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact," reports Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher…
purepedantry | February 26, 2008Doctors at the University of Navarra have implanted an auditory brainstem implant (ABI) in the youngest patient ever attempted -- a 13 month-old girl:
A team of ear, nose and throat specialists and neurosurgeons at the University Hospital of Navarra, led by doctors Manuel Manrique Rodriguez, specialist in ear, nose and throat surgery and Bartolome Bejarano Herruzo, specialist in paediatric neurosurgery, have successfully operated on a 13 month-old girl from Murcia, who had been born deaf due to the lack of auditory nerves. She is the youngest patient in the world who has received an auditory…
purepedantry | February 25, 2008Well, that's good.
The military successfully shot down a satellite whose decaying orbit brought up concerns that it might crash into...you know...something besides water. It had about a half ton of a compound called hydrazine that is explosive and toxic. While it is pretty unlikely that anything that explosive would survive a tumble through the upper atmosphere, the Pentagon thought it was better to be safe than sorry:
The Pentagon announced Monday that the mission to launch a Navy missile-interceptor at a dead spy satellite appears to have succeeded in destroying a tank filled with toxic…
purepedantry | February 25, 2008Stanley Fish of the NYTimes Think Again blog has some interesting things to say about the appointment of Bruce Benson, oil magnate and Republican activist, to be president of the University of Colorado at Boulder. The appointment raised eyebrows and protests from the faculty and students. Partly the issue is that Benson has never sought a degree higher than a BA, though he has been active in higher education in an advisory capacity before. Partly this issue is that Benson is conservative, and anyone who has spent about 4 seconds in Boulder realizes it is hardly Republican country. (We all…
purepedantry | February 22, 2008Over for the last week I have been mulling whether I want to continue doing Friday Rants, and I have come to the conclusion that I think I going to end the whole business. It is not that they aren't really amusing to write and -- I hope -- to read. It is just that I have become concerned that they are a distraction from other more important goals I have for this blog.
I am going to end the Friday Rants for two main reasons:
First, you may find this difficult to believe, but there are only so many things that inflame my indignation. I have actually had trouble of late figuring out things to…
purepedantry | February 21, 2008I remember when I was studying for Step I of the medical Boards. Step I is the first of three very large tests that you have to take to become a doctor. This first test comprises everything you learn in the first two years of medical school, and it can in theory include the pathology and physiology of anything that can go wrong with the human body. Most people take at least 6 weeks of continuous time to study for it.
Sufficeth to say it is a lot to learn.
Numerous techniques are employed by medical students studying for the Boards. There are the readers who attempt to reread every one…
purepedantry | February 20, 2008The demographic transition -- the tendency for richer societies to have fewer rather than more children -- is, I think, most often attributed to social causes. For a variety of reasons -- because each child costs more, because they are more likely to survive and take of parents in old age, because of social stigma associated with large families, because of birth control, etc. -- couples in richer countries often choose to have 2 children rather than 10. This demographic transition accounts for the increasing age of the population in Western countries, as I discussed in an earlier post.
I…
purepedantry | February 19, 2008The reignited Encephalon is up at Sharp Brains.
The next Encephalon is being hosted on March 3rd at Mind Hacks. Email encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com to submit.
purepedantry | February 19, 2008Much is made by politicians about the benefits of preventive medicine. Politicians often treat preventive medicine like it can perform fiscal magic, causing health care expenditure to evaporate.
The reality is that some preventive medicine is cost-effective and some of it is not. How effective pushing preventive medicine will be at reducing costs depends very heavily on which preventive medicine you choose to emphasize.
Such is the thrust of Cohen et al., publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine. Cohen et al. surveyed the literature on preventive medicine using a database from…
purepedantry | February 18, 2008In honor of President's day I have some interesting Presidential pathology to present. I want to talk about Andrew Jackson and his myriad of diseases.
To say that Andrew Jackson had medical problems would be the understatement of the century. Starting with a head wound sustained while a prisoner during the Revolutionary War -- he was only 13 at the time, Jackson's entire life was spent plagued with one malady or another. He was shot at least twice in duels, both leading to chronic injuries. He also very likely got malaria during the War of 1812. This situation was complicated by the fact…
purepedantry | February 18, 2008Happy President's Day! I've heard about these "holidays." Apparently they are days when people with real jobs don't have to go to work. Fascinating stuff. Someday I hope to have a job like that.
A Canadian friend of mine also noted that it is Family Day in Canada: a day intended to be spent with family. Or if you don't have a family, it is probably Hangover Day: a day for nursing a hangover because you went out on a Sunday.
purepedantry | February 15, 2008I haven't been in a large lecture for a while, but this semester I decided to take a course in introductory economics at a local community college for my own enrichment. The experience has reminded me why I was so happy that I didn't have to go to lectures anymore.
(Ed. sentence removed. See below.) My classmates need to stop. They ask so many irrelevant questions. It is astonishing how much of everyone's time they have wasted. What is even more astonishing is that the rest of the students haven't conspired to have them renditioned to some foreign gulag.
I know what you're thinking. The…
purepedantry | February 14, 2008You have got to see this video.
Sakaue-Sawano et al. may have created the coolest molecular biology video I have ever seen. They developed a system of reporters to watch the cells transition between the different stages of the cell cycle.
This is cool, but it is going to take a bit of explaining to understand why.
Background
All cells go through a cycle of steps in order to replicate their DNA and divide into two new cells. This cycle is called the cell cycle, and it is characterized by the presence of certain tightly coordinated proteins during each particular stage. I am referring to…
purepedantry | February 13, 2008I don't know if I mentioned this but I am taking a course in introductory economics in my spare time. (Just because I love econ so much!)
Anyway, this is probably a bore for the economists out there (since it is something you learn on the first day), but I just learned what a Production Possibilities Frontier is and felt compelled to make one for myself.
A Production Possibilities Frontier (PPF) is a diagram that illustrates the trade-offs between the production of two goods for an individual or group. The production of good A is on one axis, and the production of group B is on the other.…
kateseip | February 13, 2008Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson imagines that they may have.
As she writes, there are scant signals cluing us in to the sexual life of the male T. Rex. Did he have a penis? Or perhaps just a cloaca, which avians, amphibians, and reptiles use to excrete waste, semen, or eggs (should he actually be a she) and secrete attractive scents from a little gland tucked away inside the cloaca.
While male birds lack intromittent organs,* reptiles such as crocodiles have a penis hiding inside their cloaca. It's so well-hidden, in fact, that it's difficult to identify the sex of a crocodile without…
purepedantry | February 12, 2008You may remember Encephalon, a biweekly neuroscience carnival, that we used to participate in regularly. Well, it kind of lapsed there for a bit because the organizer, Mo, was very understandably busy with other things.
Sharp Brains has graciously agreed to reorganize it.
The first Encephalon of the new season is this Monday February 18th. To submit, email your posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com. The new Encephalon home page is here.
purepedantry | February 12, 2008Important Announcement #1:
ScienceDebate2008 is actually going to happen. Here is the press release:
ScienceDebate2008.com, the citizens initiative calling for a presidential debate on science and technology policy, today announced that it has formally invited the presidential candidates to a debate on April 18 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, four days before the Pennsylvania Primary. The invitation to the candidates can be found here.
"The future economic success of the United States depends on out-performing the competition with smart people and smart ideas," said Craig Barrett…