Publications by authors named "K J Black"

Problem: Limited awareness about the importance of preconception health is a recognised barrier to preparing for pregnancy.

Background: Opportunities exist to improve the health of future parents through preconception care. One of the recognised barriers to pregnancy preparation is a lack of knowledge and a lack of presentation for information and care.

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Background: Good preconception health reduces the incidence of preventable morbidity and mortality for women, their babies, and future generations. In Australia, there is a need to increase health literacy and awareness about the importance of good preconception health. Digital health tools are a possible enabler to increase this awareness at a population level.

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Coral populations across the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) could rapidly adapt to the warming climate if they have standing genetic variation for thermal tolerance. Here, we describe a locus likely involved in latitudinal adaptation of Acropora millepora. This locus shows a steep latitudinal gradient of derived allele frequency increasing at higher latitudes, and harbours a cluster of eight tandemly repeated Δ9-desaturase genes adjacent to a region in the genome where a hard selective sweep likely occurred.

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Article Synopsis
  • There are many myths and misconceptions about hormonal contraception, often spread through social media, which are leading people to avoid these methods.
  • These myths include concerns about physical and mental health effects, impacts on sexuality, infertility fears, perceptions of unnaturalness, menstruation issues, and safety worries.
  • While some of these concerns have some basis in evidence, the overall argument is that for most people, the benefits of hormonal contraception far exceed the potential drawbacks.
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  • Fibrosis contributes to serious damage in organs, but treatments targeting specific activators have often failed, leading researchers to focus on the leukemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIFR) as a key player in fibrotic diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
  • In IPF, myofibroblasts highly express LIF, and fibroblasts in key fibrotic areas coexpress LIF and LIFR, demonstrating LIFR's role in amplifying signals from other fibrotic drivers like TGFβ1, IL-4, and IL-13.
  • Blocking LIFR reduces the activation of profibrotic genes and highlights LIFR's function as a master amplifier of harmful signals
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