…By using Internet search strings such as “pro-anorexia,” “pro-bulimia” and “thin and support,” Bloomberg School researchers found dozens of websites that present dangerous ideas and encourage eating disorders. The study, led by associate professor Dina L.G. Borzekowski, analyzed the content of 180 such sites. Ninety-one percent were open to the public, and 84 percent offered content promoting anorexia, including online body-mass index calculators, photos of ultra-thin models, and advice on fasting, purging, and how to hide rapid weight loss from family and friends. The study was published in June by the American Journal of Public Health.

…A review by Johns Hopkins researchers of 146 pediatric clinical trials in five leading journals found that 41 percent had improper or poorly described randomization techniques, and 57 percent had other shortcomings that could result in bias. The review appeared in the August issue of Pediatrics. Lead investigator was Michael Crocetti, a pediatrician in the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

…A team led by Dean F. Wong, professor of radiology and psychiatry at the School of Medicine, successfully tested a radioactive tracer compound that distinguished the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease from healthy brains in PET scans. The compound, florbetapir, could permit better and more widespread diagnosis of the disease, as well as help in development of therapeutics. The results were reported in the June edition of Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

…From 2001 to 2008, exposure to beer and liquor advertising among youths (ages 12 to 20) declined by 48 percent, according to a new study out of the Bloomberg School’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. The study analyzed 29,026 advertisements for alcohol in U.S. magazines, and correlated those ads with demographic data to determine how many appeared in magazines with significant youth readership. The study appeared on the center’s website: www.camy.org.

…School of Medicine neurosurgery faculty Rafael Tamargo and Ian Suk (who is also a medical illustrator) believe they can explain peculiarities in the rendering of God in one section of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling: Michelangelo, for unknown reasons, incorporated accurate images of the brainstem and spinal cord in God’s neck and red cloak. “It’s an unusual view of the brainstem, from the bottom up,” said Suk in a press release. “Most people wouldn’t recognize it unless they had extensively studied neuroanatomy.” The study appeared in the May Neurosurgery.

—DK