Missed out on some of our posts in June? No need to trawl the archives – we’ve pulled together the highlights for you right here.

Do we need a red card for alcohol advertising in football?

With the World Cup kicking off on 12th June, we braced ourselves for the highs and lows of a month of football. But getting bitten by Luis Suarez might not be the only danger of the tournament. In a guest post, Dr Jean Adams, a Senior Lecturer in Public Health at Newcastle University, UK, told us about her latest research into alcohol advertising in football, published in BMC Public Health.

The perfect body? How eating disorders and body image are a threat to men’s health

Eating disorders have always been represented as stereotypically female. We see women dieting on TV shows, fighting with their weight, struggling with their ‘unsatisfactory’ body image. For Men’s Health Awareness Week, James Balm took a look at the often invisible demand on men to achieve the perfect physique – something that can be truly damaging to both mental and physical health, leading to a collection of destructive behaviors.

Can you show us that again please?

Research published in BMC Biology has shown that reported Drosophila courtship song rhythms are artifacts of data analysis. For almost thirty years, David Stern (the author of the paper) has been obsessed with the fact that male fruit flies ‘sing’ to females. His work on this problem got him thinking about reproducibility in science and in a guest post he sets out his prescription to help scientists check whether research results are reliable.

The devil is in the DEETails

An article published at the beginning of June in Parasites and Vectors reviewed the evidence on whether the insect repellent DEET is unsafe. In a guest post, Dr James Logan, one of the authors and Senior Lecturer in Medical Entomology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) told us about how we assess the dangers of chemicals like DEET, and how their risks should be balanced against their benefits.

Meanwhile, in another post on our Bugbitten blog to tie in with LSHTM’s Bug off campaign, Anna Perman took a look at some of the tiny creatures with the nasty bites that make insect repellent so vital.

From breast cancer to open peer review…

A new test to predict breast cancer risk: A simple blood test is currently in development that could help predict the likelihood of a woman developing breast cancer, even in the absence of a high-risk BRCA1 gene mutation, according to research published in Genome Medicine. I took a look at what was found, and what it could mean for future cancer prevention and treatment.

What is needed to create a tobacco-free world?: Abstracts from the latest conference of the International Society for the Prevention of Tobacco Induced Diseases were published last month. Alexa Chamay-Berrier took a look at the key message of the conference: education is vital in preventing children and teenagers from becoming the next generation of smokers

A case for open peer review for clinical trials: As an expert witness on a panel tasked with giving evidence on different elements of publishing clinical trials, Steph Harriman was asked “how does open peer review work and does it address all the flaws of the current system of publishing clinical trials?”. She made her case for open peer review both for the panel and on our blog.

Cancer epigenomics and the new holy grail – turning cancer into chronic disease: A new series from Genome Medicine aims to highlight how advances driven by genome-wide and high-throughput technologies are allowing the detection of epigenetic alterations and the development of new approaches for detecting, monitoring and managing cancer. Romina Andrew took us through the first articles in her post.

Solving the human resources for health crisis: research to inform policy in Africa: On the Human Resources for Health blog, guest blogger Esme Lanktree of the Global Health Research Initiative wrote about the widespread recognition of the human resources for health crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, and the different approaches to address it.

What to expect when you’re expecting – spare a thought for the dads: Expectations of what fathers should contribute to the complex process of caring for their children are now much higher. In another post for Men’s Health Week and to mark Fathers’ Day in the UK, I took a look at some of the research into fatherhood and the often-overlooked anxiety and depression that can be faced by expectant and new dads.

And finally…

Make your mealtimes more tasteful: Research published in our journal Flavour showed that food arranged to resemble famous artworks tastes better than food in a traditional or neat presentation. Anna Perman created a gallery on the blog of some of our own food artworks to help inspire you to play with your food.