Healthy cells don't just happen. As they grow and divide, they need checks and balances to ensure they function properly while adapting to changing conditions around them.
Researchers studying a set of proteins that regulate physiology, caloric restriction and aging have discovered another important role that one of them plays. SIRT4, one of seven sirtuin proteins, is known for controlling fuel usage from its post in the mitochondria, the cell's energy source. It responds to stressful changes in the availability of nutrients for the cell.
New research reveals that SIRT4 is also extremely sensitive to a different form of stress: DNA damage. This unsuspected response by the metabolic checkpoint means SIRT4 doubles as a sentry guarding against cancer, which is spurred by genetic abnormalities.
Sirtuins have become familiar for their connection to longevity and to resveratrol, the red-wine compound that activates SIRT1, but less attention has been focused on SIRT3, SIRT 4 and SIRT5, all of which are found in mitochondria. Marcia Haigis, HMS associate professor of cell biology, led a team that has uncovered SIRT4 as an important player in the DNA damage response pathway, coordinating a sequence of events that normally result[s] in tumor suppression. They published their results April 4 in Cancer Cell.
"When we started studying SIRT4, we were focused only on its metabolic role, looking for functions related to diabetes and obesity," said Haigis. "What we found, to our surprise, was that SIRT4 was responsive to DNA damage, so that led us to investigate the metabolic response to DNA damage and how SIRT4 controls the metabolic response to genotoxic stress."
To see how SIRT4 normally functions, Haigis and her colleagues induced DNA damage by exposing cells in a lab dish to ultraviolet light. This damage triggered a halt in glutamine metabolism, limiting the amount of nutrients the cell could use as it goes through a cycle of division and growth.
Blocking the cell cycle at this juncture is important. If cell growth after DNA damage goes unchecked, proliferation of impaired cells can lead to cancer. When SIRT4 works properly, this chain of events is broken before bad cells and their abnormal genes multiply. SIRT4 blocks glutamine metabolism, arrests the cell cycle and suppresses tumor formation.
The scientists tested this SIRT4 response in mice. Bred to lack the gene that encodes the SIRT4 protein but otherwise normal, the mice spontaneously developed lung cancer by 15 months.
"When SIRT4 is missing, you don't have this metabolic checkpoint involving glutamine, which is important because glutamine is an amino acid required for proliferation in the cell," Haigis said. "Without SIRT4, the cell keeps dividing even in the face of DNA damage, so the cell accumulates more damage."
The scientists also analyzed data showing SIRT4 gene expression levels are low in several human cancers, including small-cell lung carcinoma, gastric cancer, bladder carcinoma, breast cancer and leukemia.
While they cannot say if SIRT4 loss alone will initiate cancer, its absence appears to create an environment in which tumor cells survive and grow.
"Our findings suggest that SIRT4 may be a potential target against tumors," they conclude.
###
Harvard Medical School: http://hms.harvard.edu
Thanks to Harvard Medical School for this article.
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MADRID (Reuters) - One of Spain's best known film directors, Juan Jose Bigas Luna, who shot actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem to fame in the 1990s with his celebrated film "Jamon, Jamon", has died of cancer at the age of 67.
Bigas Luna was known in Spain for his erotically charged films like Bilbao (1978) and had more recent success again outside his home country with "My Name Is Juani", a 2006 movie about a young woman ditching her small town for Madrid.
Spain's Academy for Cinematography Arts and Sciences said on its Twitter account on Saturday:
"The Academy is sorry about the passing away of Bigas Luna yesterday ... The 67-year-old film director was working on his next film."
Bigas Luna died at his home in Tarragona, near the northeastern city of Barcelona.
His 1992 film, "Jamon, Jamon" (Ham, Ham), not only gave Bardem and Cruz, now married, their big break, but Bigas Luna also won a Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for the comedy drama.
Spain's Culture Minister, Jose Ignacio Wert, said most internationally famous Spanish actors had worked with the director.
"Bigas Luna's films were always characterized by a very fresh vision, although sometimes with a touch of acidity about our environment," Wert said in a statement.
Bigas Luna's latest film was Di Di Hollywood, released in 2010. He was working on a film adaptation of a novel by Catalan author Manuel de Pedrolo.
(Reporting by Leticia Nunez and Inmaculada Sanz; Writing by Clare Kane, edited by Richard Meares)
TOKYO (AP) ? Japan is taking aggressive action to lift consumer prices, encourage borrowing and help pull the world's third-largest economy out of a long slump.
Like the U.S. Federal Reserve, Japan's central bank plans to flood its financial system with more money ? its most far-reaching step to date to get consumers and companies to borrow and spend.
The Bank of Japan's action will also drive down the value of the yen. A cheaper currency will make Japanese goods ? from Toyota cars to Sony TVs ? less costly for Americans and other foreigners. And it will make U.S. and other exports more expensive in Japan.
The move comes as major central banks around the world are acting to stimulate their economies. On Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the ECB is considering doing more to shore up the ailing economy of the euro alliance. The ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.75 percent, but Draghi said an interest rate cut was discussed Thursday.
Draghi also said the central bank is considering "various tools" beyond lower rates in case Europe's economy needs more help.
And the U.S. Fed has said it expects to keep short-term rates at record lows at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent from the current 7.7 percent. The Fed also plans to continue buying $85 billion a month in bonds indefinitely to keep long-term borrowing costs down.
"The central banks are being more activist than we've seen in decades," said Timothy Duy, an economist at the University of Oregon. "One central bank after another has to do more because economies aren't improving as fast as would have been expected."
Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors Co., told CNBC that he feared the Bank of Japan's policies would give Japanese automakers a price advantage over GM in the United States.
"They're an export economy," Akerson said. "You have to be suspicious of what they're doing and why."
But many economists say the rest of the world will benefit, too: A faster-growing Japan will buy more products and services from the United States, China and Europe, helping boost their economies.
"We could see some faster and sustainable growth now in Japan," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. "That will obviously help the global economy."
Japan's economy has been sputtering for two decades. Last year, weak consumer spending kept prices flat. The Bank of Japan hopes to increase inflation to 2 percent within about two years. Economists say Japanese consumers will start spending if they know prices are going rise.
Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, cautioned that Japan needs more than easy-money policies to repair its economy. It needs to reduce its debts and reform policies that protect weak firms from competition and undercut the country's productivity.
"Japan would no longer be a drag on the global economic recovery if it had stronger domestic demand and positive inflation," Prasad said. "However, it is far from clear that the Bank of Japan's actions will be able to deliver these positive outcomes in the absence of broader structural reforms that are essential to revive Japan's productivity and competitiveness. "
Critics also say that without wage increases to match the price hikes, many consumers may be even less willing to spend.
"The new BOJ's willingness to experiment should be welcomed," said Uri Dadush, director of the economics program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "But they are also inevitably wading into unknown waters. There is no certainty that the new approach will work."
Baumohl added that BOJ's move could backfire if other countries deliberately push down the value of their currencies to regain a price edge for their exports.
"It does increase the risk of other countries taking similar moves in what they perceive as a currency war," he said.
In its announcement, the Bank of Japan said it plans to buy more than $530 billion a year in government bonds. BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda described the scale of monetary stimulus as "large beyond reason," but said the inflation target would remain out of reach if the central bank stuck to incremental steps.
"We'll adjust without hesitation if need be, while monitoring economic and price conditions," he said.
The Bank of Japan said it intends to "drastically change the expectations of markets and economic entities."
Since taking power late last year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration has pursued an aggressive stimulus program of government spending, monetary easing and planned reforms aimed at improving Japan's competitiveness.
On Thursday, Japanese stocks jumped and the yen sank after the central bank's announcement. The yen weakened 3 percent against the dollar, to 95.94 yen, while Tokyo's Nikkei stock index rose 2.2 percent to 12,634.54.
U.S.-listed shares of Japanese automakers rose sharply, reflecting the belief that a weaker yen would make Japanese vehicles cheaper in markets outside Japan. The U.S. shares of Toyota rose $4.43, or 4.4 percent, to $105.31, Honda's rose $1.93, or 5.2 percent, to $39.13 and the Nissan's rose 84 cents, 4.5 percent, to $19.66.
"By committing today to meet a 2 percent inflation target in two years, Gov. Kuroda can justifiably claim to have set the Bank of Japan on a new path," said Mark Williams of Capital Economics.
Kuroda has vowed to do what he must to meet the inflation target within two years. Thursday's decision after a two-day policy meeting makes that central bank policy.
Politically, the policy shift is a coup for Abe, whose Liberal Democratic Party needs to make headway in reviving the economy before an upper house parliamentary election in July. The LDP is hoping for a strong-enough mandate to push ahead with other items on their wish list, such as politically difficult economic and educational reforms and changes to the constitution to give Japan's military a higher profile.
Economy minister Akira Amari, who attended the policy meeting, praised Kuroda, giving him "very high marks,"
More aggressive monetary easing is a top priority, along with increased public spending to help perk up demand and reforms to make the economy more competitive in the long-run.
Abe had accused Kuroda's predecessor Masaaki Shirakawa, who stepped down on March 19, of balking at undertaking bold enough monetary easing to get the economy back on track. The steps announced Thursday under the first policy meeting chaired by Kuroda exceeded expectations in that regard.
"The first step is to get out of deflation and get a much higher nominal growth rate," Kozo Yamamoto, a senior lawmaker in Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, said Wednesday. A doubling of the money supply was needed to achieve that aim, he said.
The BOJ's policy reforms appear to be a major concession to government demands, despite the bank's ostensible autonomy.
The bank kept the benchmark rate at 0.1 percent. But instead of carrying out money market operations to meet interest rate targets that have long remained near zero, the central bank will focus on the monetary base, or total amount of cash in circulation and bank reserves, raising it by 60 trillion yen to 70 trillion yen ($637 billion to $744 billion) a year. The monetary base stood at 138 trillion yen ($1.45 trillion) at the end of 2012.
The idea is that increasing the amount of cash in circulation will inflate prices, including for assets, encouraging more spending by those who own shares and property.
"If prices don't go up, wages don't go up. If people believe prices will be higher six months from now, then they will believe it's best to buy now rather than later," Abe said in a parliamentary debate Tuesday.
___
Wiseman contributed from Washington. AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed from Detroit.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The pool of potential Los Angeles jurors to hear a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Michael Jackson's mother has grown to 36.
The group has been given a 24-page questionnaire assessing their knowledge and opinions on Jackson, his family and concert giant AEG Live.
Katherine Jackson is suing AEG claiming the company failed to properly investigate the doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her son's June 2009 death.
More than 180 potential jurors have been screened, but only three dozen have enough time to serve on the trial, which may last three months.
Jury selection continues Thursday.
AEG has denied wrongdoing and says it never hired former physician Conrad Murray to care for Jackson. Jackson's family is seeking $40 billion, although jurors would have to determine any damages.
The rise of the "Internet of Things" promises to connect us wirelessly to all the gadgets around us, making our lives easier. That includes some surprising devices that are now networked.
By Rachel Rosmarin
", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/jk/networked-devices-01-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/nN/networked-devices-01-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide2", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-2", slidetype: "image", title: "Pet Feeder", description: "Working late? Feed Fido by tapping the screen on your iOS, Android, or Windows 8 app. The Wi-Fi-connected kibble receptacle can hold from 5 to 10 pounds of pet food, and dispense whatever amount you choose\n
\nUsers also can trust Pintofeed to know when their pet wants to eat based on when they\'ve eaten in the past. The device will come up with a feeding schedule and notify you via text, email, Facebook, or Twitter when each meal has been served. Pintofeed is heading into production now; you can reserve one for $129.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/wz/networked-devices-02-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/f2/networked-devices-02-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide3", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-3", slidetype: "image", title: "Weather Cube", description: "A glance at your phone\'s weather app will reveal tomorrow\'s temperature. But it won\'t let you feel it. The thermoelectric element inside this Wi-Fi-connected metal cube can take it down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit or up to 100. Touching the temperature you\'ll be feeling tomorrow on the Cryoscope makes it real?you\'ll know for certain whether you need to take a sweater.", credit: "Robb Godshaw", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/fw/networked-devices-03-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/lg/networked-devices-03-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide4", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-4", slidetype: "image", title: "Doorbell", description: "In the Harry Potter books, Mrs. Weasley owns a clock that tells her where her family members are. MIT Media Lab\'s Tangible Media Group envisions something similar: A doorbell that chimes a different sound when each member of the household is nearing home. It pulls data from each family member\'s Google Latitude account, a location-based mobile app that relies on Google Maps for GPS and cell-tower triangulation data. The doorbell alert means you won\'t have to stop cooking dinner when you want an update on your kids\' commute.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/0D/networked-devices-04-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/tn/networked-devices-04-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide5", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-5", slidetype: "video", title: "Mirror", description: "Flat-panel displays are everywhere?even screens at gas stations and in elevators tell us the weather and the news. But this one by Cybertecture is also a Wi-Fi-connected mirror. Put it in the bathroom and it will relay health data, let you browse social networks, watch video, and even check your form while exercising. The mirror gleans health data from an optional peripheral: a sensor pad that functions as a scale that calculates body fat, muscle mass, and bone mass, in addition to weight.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/SW/networked-devices-05-0413-smn.jpg", videotype: "embedded" }, { id: "slide6", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-6", slidetype: "video", title: "Piano", description: "\"Play it, @StanleyPiano. Play \'As Time Goes By.\'\"\n
\nSeattle agency Digital Kitchen created a player piano that receives tweets of song titles. It then takes MIDI files of those songs and turns them, via a USB interface, into ivory-tickled keynotes using a hardware controller. There\'s no satisfaction quite like commanding an old-school analog instrument to strike up a tune via your smartphone.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/F6/networked-devices-06-0413-smn.jpg", videotype: "embedded" }, { id: "slide7", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-7", slidetype: "image", title: "Lightbulb", description: "Another Kickstarter success story, the energy-efficient Lifx bulb (available for preorder at $69 apiece) screws into existing sockets and is controlled via Wi-Fi on an iOS or Android app. You can tell it (or them, if you install multiple bulbs) to turn on and off at different times, dim and brighten slowly, change colors, flash in patterns, and more. The manufacturer also promises \"robot dancing.\" While the prospect of an Internet-enabled living-room rave sounds fun, the lazy comfort of dimming the lights from the couch or turning on the light in the basement before heading down the steps is even more appealing.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/kr/networked-devices-07-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/0m/networked-devices-07-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide8", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-8", slidetype: "image", title: "Environmental Sensors", description: "In Star Trek, the Tricorder is the ultimate environmental sensor and data-analysis device. Curious earthbound types who\'ve wished for one may soon be able to play-act with the Sensordrone, a gadget with built-in sensors that sends data directly to smartphones in real time. The phones can then relay data to the Web via tweets and other social media. This is the Swiss Army Knife of data gathering.\n
\nSensors include temperature, humidity, light, IR barometer, blood alcohol level, carbon monoxide, and gas. Blood-pressure monitors are expected soon, but no word on whether a radiation detector is in the works. You can set your smartphone to automatically tweet data gathered from the sensors.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/nq/networked-devices-08-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/Hn/networked-devices-08-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide9", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-9", slidetype: "image", title: "Gardening Assistant", description: "Attention hydroponic gardeners: Not sure about optimum light, water, and temperature levels for your plants? Sensors placed in your planters can measure water, temperature, humidity, brightness, pH, and nutrient concentration, and can help to yield a better crop. Bitponics\' gear, currently in development, takes measurements from the air and soil and uploads them automatically to a Web interface for analysis, helping to turn your black thumb to green.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/9D/networked-devices-09-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/TX/networked-devices-09-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide10", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-10", slidetype: "image", title: "Paper-Craft Toys", description: "ReaDIYmates are pattern kits for paper-craft toys (monsters and sculptures). Each one comes with a paper body, a built-in motor and speaker, and a tiny processor with some flash memory and a Wi-Fi radio. Thanks to this hardware, you can turn these bits of paper and wire into amiable creatures by using your creative touch.\n
\nWith simple Web commands, for example, teach them to dance using your iPhone\'s accelerometer, tweet, or send voice memos. Have them holler and shimmy when someone likes your latest Facebook post. Or use these highly personalized toys to entertain someone, even from a Web browser half a world away.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/SI/networked-devices-10-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/f7/networked-devices-10-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide11", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-11", slidetype: "image", title: "Music Box", description: "Miss the tactile feel of mix tapes, but don\'t want to store your music on flimsy disposable media? The Spotify box, a prototype built by designer Jordi Parra, appeals to nostalgic types who\'ve lamented the Internet-only aspect of modern music consumption but don\'t want to eschew the endless variety available online. Tiny RFID tokens link directly to Spotify music playlists or artist tags that play when you place them on the Web-connected box.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/d5/networked-devices-11-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/A0/networked-devices-11-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide12", url: "12-devices-you-didnt-know-were-web-connected-12", slidetype: "image", title: "Lamps", description: "The Good Night Lamp is a beautifully designed light fixture shaped like a house. It comes with a larger and smaller version of the same design. Turning on the big lamp at your home also turns on the little one, which might be in your daughter\'s dorm room. The two users decide what on and off mean; turning the light off could mean \"I\'m asleep,\" or turning it on could mean \"I have time to talk on the phone now.\"\n
\nSure, people could send these messages by text. But the Good Night Lamp\'s designers think of it as a way to feel the presence of someone located far away. The lamp failed to meet its Kickstarter goals, but its creators still plan to move forward with the project.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/sV/networked-devices-12-0413-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/R0/networked-devices-12-0413-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 } ] };
Air Quality Egg
Air-quality levels monitored and reported by the government don't take into account the conditions right outside your doorstep. If you knew that nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide levels in your neighborhood or near your child's school were especially high on any given day, you might choose to keep young lungs inside.
The Air Quality Egg gives you exactly this information. Sensors measure air quality outside your front door, and then an RF transmitter sends the data to an egg-shaped base station in your house. The Egg, which turns different colors to alert you to changes in the air quality, sends the data on to a service that graphs it for the public.
The collective information from Eggs around the world could ultimately help researchers studying the environmental causes for a variety of diseases, such as heart and lung disease.
You could call WebKit the glue that binds the modern web: the rendering engine powers Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and many mobile browsers past and present. Things are about to unstick a little. Google believes that Chromium's multi-process approach has added too much complexity for both the browser and WebKit itself, so it's creating a separate, simpler fork named Blink. Although the new engine will be much the same as WebKit at the start, it's expected to differ over time as Google strips out unnecessary code and tweaks the underlying platform. We'd also expect it to spread, as the company has confirmed to us that both Chrome and Chrome OS will be using Blink in the future. We're safely distant from the Bad Old Days of wildly incompatible web engines, but the shift may prove a mixed blessing -- it could lead to more advancements on the web, but it also gives developers that much more code to support.
Update: The Next Web has confirmed thatOpera, which recently ditched its Presto engine for Webkit, will indeed be using Blink as it's already hitching its proverbial wagon to Chromium.
James Hansen, a devoted activist against climate change, announced his retirement from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and plans to challenge federal and state governments over carbon dioxide emissions.
By Tanya Lewis,?LiveScience / April 2, 2013
James Hansen at the Energy Crossroads conference in Denmark on March 12, 2009.
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Climate scientist James Hansen is retiring from NASA this week to devote himself to the fight against global warming.
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Hansen's retirement concludes a 46-year career at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, but he plans to use his time to take up legal challenges to the federal and state governments over limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
In recent years, Hansen, 72, has become an?activist for climate change, which didn't sit well with NASA headquarters in Washington. "As a government employee, you can't testify against the government," Hansen told?The New York Times.
Supporting his "moral obligation" to step up to the fight now, Hansen adds in the Times article that burning a substantial fraction of Earth's fossil fuels guarantees "unstoppable changes" in the planet's climate, leaving an unfixable problem for future generations.
The distinguished NASA scientist has spent his career at the Goddard Institute on the campus of Columbia University. He has testified in Congress dozens of times, and has issued warnings and published papers that drew criticism from climate-change skeptics. [The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted]
Hansen was arrested in February while protesting?the proposed construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline that would carry heavy crude oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. "We have reached a fork in the road," he told?the Washington Post?at the time, adding that politicians must understand they can "go down this road of exploiting every fossil fuel we have ? tar sands, tar shale, off-shore drilling in the Arctic ? but the science tells us we can't do that without creating a situation where our children and grandchildren will have no control over, which is the climate system."
With his departure from NASA, Hansen told the Times he plans to lobby European leaders to institute a tax on?oil derived from tar sands, whose extraction leads to more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil. He could not have done these things as a government employee, he said.
Hansen will probably work in a converted barn on his farm in Pennsylvania, but may possibly set up a small institute or take an academic appointment, according to the Times. He will continue to publish papers in academic journals, but will not run the powerful computers and other resources NASA provided for tracking and forecasting global warming and its effects.
Raised in a small town in Iowa, Hansen initially studied the planet Venus, but switched to studying the effect of human greenhouse gas emissions on Earth during the 1970s.?
He was one of the first scientists to?raise alarm about global warming?and its effects on climate and the environment. After testifying at a Congressional committee in 1988?that man-made global warming has begun, Hansen was quoted widely as saying, "It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here."
Hansed joined NASA's Goddard Institute as a post-doctoral scholar in 1967 and became a federal employee in 1972. He became director in 1981, and was?the longest-serving director in the intistute's history. "He has pushed forward the frontier of our knowledge of Earth's climate system and of the impacts that humanity is having on Earth?s climate," Nicholas E. White, director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at Goddard, said in a statement.
Climate scientists applaud Hansen for leading the predictions of climate change's effects. But some say these predictions were exaggerated. For example, he has said in recent years that vast carbon dioxide emissions might ultimately cause a runaway greenhouse effect like on Venus that would boil the oceans and make Earth uninhabitable, the Times reported. Other scientists say this hasn't happened in the past and that Hansen overstated the risk.
Hansen was embroiled in a political fight in 2005, when a young political appointee in George W. Bush's administration tried to muzzle Hansen in the press. But Hansen revealed this to the public in an interview?reported by the Times, and the administration lifted its restrictions.
Despite his environmentalist stance, Hansen has also criticized the environmentalist movement. He strongly opposed a failed climate bill in 2009, because he said it would have given the federal government billions of dollars without truly limiting emissions.
Hansen, who is registered as an independent, believes carbon dioxide emissions should be taxed, but that the money should be returned to the public as a rebate, instead of going to the goverment.
Hansen told the Times he senses a mass movement on climate change is beginning, led by young people, which he plans to support.
Follow?Tanya Lewis?on?Twitter?and?Google+.?Follow us?@livescience,?Facebook?&?Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
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