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Human inborn errors of immunity include rare disorders entailing functional and quantitative antibody deficiencies due to impaired B cells called the common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) phenotype. Patients with CVID face delayed diagnoses and treatments for 5 to 15 years after symptom onset because the disorders are rare (prevalence of ~1/25,000), and there is extensive heterogeneity in CVID phenotypes, ranging from infections to autoimmunity to inflammatory conditions, overlapping with other more common disorders. The prolonged diagnostic odyssey drives excessive system-wide costs before diagnosis. Because there is no single causal mechanism, there are no genetic tests to definitively diagnose CVID. Here, we present PheNet, a machine learning algorithm that identifies patients with CVID from their electronic health records (EHRs). PheNet learns phenotypic patterns from verified CVID cases and uses this knowledge to rank patients by likelihood of having CVID. PheNet could have diagnosed more than half of our patients with CVID 1 or more years earlier than they had been diagnosed. When applied to a large EHR dataset, followed by blinded chart review of the top 100 patients ranked by PheNet, we found that 74% were highly probable to have CVID. We externally validated PheNet using >6 million records from disparate medical systems in California and Tennessee. As artificial intelligence and machine learning make their way into health care, we show that algorithms such as PheNet can offer clinical benefits by expediting the diagnosis of rare diseases. Editor's summary: Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) disease is an inborn error of immunity characterized by antibody deficiency and impaired B cell responses. This condition can be difficult to diagnose on account of its heterogenous presentation. Johnson et al. developed and validated a machine learning model designed to parse patient electronic health record data and rank individuals according to their likelihood of having CVID. Their retrospective analysis suggested that the method could help diagnose many individuals earlier than standard clinical methods, potentially hastening their referral for specialist treatment. —Catherine Charneski [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But Gershunov suspects a redo of their 2019 projections that accounts for these two species of winds would show that the cold winds will decline in the coming decades. PHOTO (COLOR): The 2017 Thomas Fire, fanned by Santa Ana winds, burned an area nearly as large as Los Angeles. [Extracted from the article]

Assesses the way Caltech handled two apparently unrelated cases of alleged scientific research fraud in the lab of biologist Leroy Hood. Comparisons to how the so-called Baltimore scientific fraud case was handled; Apparently falsified research paper figure of two research postdocs, Vipin Kumar and James Urban; Kumar's defense of his actions; Hood's decision to notify various agencies and universities involved with Kumar; Lingering concerns about Caltech's handling of cases.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B challenges the perception that California grizzly bears were large and dangerous predators. The study compared historical descriptions of the bears with new paleontological data and found that they were mostly herbivores and smaller than previously believed. The last California grizzly bear was seen in the wild in 1924, and the study's findings shed light on the factors that led to their extinction. The researchers are now working with Indigenous tribes to discuss the possibility of reintroducing grizzlies to California's wildlands. [Extracted from the article]

The reports that the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Pacific Division would be held from June 10 to 15, 1984 at the San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California. Among the symposia to be featured at the June meeting will be those on El Nino, Sexual Differentiation in the Brain, Chinese Medicine, Human Origins, and Biotechnology. Contributed papers are welcome on topics in any of the diverse sciences represented in the Division. AAAS members living in the area served by the Division should have received a copy of the preliminary announcement with the call for papers, housing information, and registration forms.

When Miller started to see more dead sea otters like the one she examined in 2020, she reached out to I Toxoplasma i experts at the University of California (UC), Davis. New strain of Toxoplasma kills the marine mammals quickly, may pose seafood hazard for humans Melissa Miller knew something was off when she began to examine a sea otter that had died in San Simeon, a coastal California town about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, in the winter of 2020. [Extracted from the article]

A husband-wife ecologist team of David and Deborah Clark's 20-year study of tropical rainforests yielded a wealth of insights that suggests that global warming could be worse than expected.In a paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Clarks and atmospheric scientists Charles D. Keeling and Stephen Piper of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, report that in hot years, the trees at La Selva grow less and the world's tropics emit lots of carbon dioxide. The Clarks were absolutely essential to making La Selva one of the world's top tropical forest research and education sites, says botanist Donald Stone, a longtime OTS director and professor emeritus at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The Clarks focused their research on the demographics of La Selva's more than 300 tree species, only three of which had been studied in detail.

Lithium ions nestle close to niobium atoms during charging and simply drift away during discharge, causing less damage to the battery as it goes through repeated charge/discharge cycles. Amprius, the company Cui spun out to commercialize the technology, reported in February it has developed a silicon-anode lithium-ion battery with a capacity of 450 watt-hours per kilogram, nearly double that of the 280 Wh/kg cells used in current Tesla EVs. California, known for leading the United States in climate regulations, dropped a bombshell last month: By 2035, the state will ban sales of new gasoline powered cars and light trucks. [Extracted from the article]

Describes the work of three US Geological Survey seismologists in California, who have recently published a paper forecasting an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 to 6 on the Calaveras fault near San Jose, California in the next few years. Fault's past behavior.

This article profiles Nick Cozzarelli, who served the U.S. National Academies for more than a decade as editor in chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. During that time he turned the journal around and it was not an easy task. When Nick came aboard in 1995, members of the Academy were fond of their ability to sponsor papers for colleagues or to get their own published and some objected to the institution of more formal and rigorous peer review. Nick came to his editorial job during a distinguished scientific career in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, California. He managed to combine those commitments in a way that was continuously productive on both fronts, a source of admiration for those who try these things only one at a time.

The article reports that as electronic devices shrink toward paper-thinness, researchers and companies around the globe are scrambling to come up with novel materials and designs for two-dimensional batteries to power them. Like their 3D cousins, so-called flat batteries convert chemical energy to electricity by making an electrical connection between a negative electrode, or anode, and a positively charged electrode, called the cathode. To get around this problem, Larry Dubois, a chemist at SRI International Corp. in Menlo Park, California, and colleagues are working on a couple of possible fixes. The setup uses a device resembling a computer-controlled ink-jet printer to lay down successive layers of liquid precursors for the electrodes and electrolytes of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.

Meanwhile, team members have ruled out the possibility that the Borg came from another microbe, as they lack many necessary genes for life, or a virus, which typically have shorter chromosomes. PHOTO (COLOR): Luis Valentin-Alvarado (left) and Basem Al-Shayeb (right) collect DNA-filled soil samples from what was a temporary springtime pond. One sample, taken from the mud on her property, contained a gene-filled stretch of DNA almost 1 million bases long - and more than half the genes were novel. [Extracted from the article]

Reveals that two researchers in the lab of Caltech biologist Leroy Hood are under investigation for two apparently unrelated instances of possible research fraud. Two recent papers have had to be retracted from journals.

Crime did not surge when California became a "sanctuary state" Since this is impossible, Kubrin and her UC Irvine co-author Bradley Bartos compared California with a "synthetic version" of itself lacking SB54. After SB54 was introduced, the crime rate in California continued to closely mirror the rate in synthetic California, the team found. [Extracted from the article]

Donato et al. (Brevia, 20 January 2006, p. 352) concluded that logging after wildfire kills natural regeneration and increases fire risk. We argue that their paper lacks adequate context and supporting information to be clearly interpreted by scientists, resource managers, policy-makers, and the public.