Nigel Barker, a photographer who has been with America's Next Top Model since its beginning in 2003, was let go from the reality competition this week.
How is he taking the news? Not too well.
"Good luck to whoever [replaces me]," Barker told TMZ. "I would imagine it's a tricky thing to replace someone who's going on their 19th season."
Neither J. Alexander nor Jay Manuel will return to America's Next Top Model this fall, either, as insiders tell major changes are in store. Ratings have not been strong for two cycles in a row now.
""Who knows if this is going to work?" Barker asked. "I don't necessarily think it's a good idea ... Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. I wish them luck."
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? North Carolina's public schools have been creative in using less state money but must get some relief or the years of spending cuts will finally catch up with student performance, local superintendents told lawmakers on Thursday.
The Legislature's education oversight committee invited the leaders to give their views a month before the budget-adjusting session begins. They urged lawmakers to ease back on requiring all districts to return a combined $503 million to the state during the next fiscal year. That is $74 million more than this year.
These kinds of cuts have been going at one level or another for 11 years, said Lee County Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Moss, calling them a "huge cancer in our budget."
"Eleven years of students have come through our school system and each one of those years we've had less revenue to work with those kids," Moss told lawmakers. "Let's not lose another generation of students."
The superintendents came to discuss the state budget's effects on their school systems, speaking in particular about so-called "mandatory reversions" in which districts must return state funds for education. The reversions come with districts being given the flexibility to decide where to make the cuts. But those and other cuts over the past several years are leaving fewer options for where to save beyond losing classroom personnel, the four superintendents said.
Alleghany County Schools Superintendent Jeff Cox, whose mountain district has seen the number of employees decline 16 percent since mid-2009 to 268 workers, said it had to return $421,463 to the state this fiscal year. Cox said lawmakers have also reduced spending for administrators, instructional support and supplies so it's difficult to know how they'll return even more money for the year starting July 1.
"We can't take it out of textbooks, because we really don't get any textbook money anymore," Cox said. "There are a number of significant funding categories where there's just not any money to pull from, so it ends up being people."
The reversions were part of a $19.7 billion state budget that reduced overall spending on the public schools compared to their projected needs by $459 million. Republican leaders on the committee have been criticized for months by Gov. Beverly Perdue, other Democrats and education groups for the reductions.
Two weeks ago, the State Board of Education held an unusual public hearing to allow more superintendents to sound off and raise alarms about funding. House Speaker Thom Tills, R-Mecklenburg, said months ago that lawmakers also would hold hearings with superintendents in districts that lay off teachers to find out why they did so. But no meeting had been scheduled until now.
GOP legislators were quick to point out Thursday the mandated district reductions have been a tool used by both parties. Democrats initiated $304 million in discretionary cuts during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years. Democrats counter that Republicans could have avoided last year increasing the level of reversions if they had permitted a temporary penny increase on the sales tax to remain on the books.
"The cuts have been coming for many years," said Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-Stokes, an education budget-writer. Holloway and budget counterpart Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, said they hoped to ease the level of the reversions if the state's revenue picture allowed it. The General Assembly and Perdue should get a better idea when April tax collections are all counted.
"I do know that discretionary cuts have taken a toll and I do think there is some sentiment in trying to do something about that," Tillman said.
Perdue said her budget proposal for the year starting July 1 will seek a three-quarter cent sales tax increase designed to reduce the discretionary cuts and make up for federal grant money districts used to hire more than 5,400 school personnel this year. Republican leaders insist no sales tax increase will occur.
Tillman pointed out how the school districts represented Thursday had improved academically despite the spending reductions ? they mentioned higher test scores, increased graduation rates and more students taking Advanced Placement classes.
Moss said children in third grade and higher in the Lee County system have access to laptops, where they can go to teacher-approved websites to access contemporary information and at cheaper price than textbooks. Elementary school students in the system read 25,000 e-books in the first six months of the year.
"Those are 25,000 books I did not have to put in the media center," Moss said. "That does save money."
Superintendent Michael Bracy of the Jones County school system, where end-of-course test scores are outpacing the state average after years of high dropout rates and teacher turnover, asked lawmakers to think beyond dollars and cents when forming the next budget.
"We as adults have to remember numbers are crucial, numbers are important," told the committee. "But we can't forget that the reason why we're all here is probably because (of) an educator who helped us get where we are."
Justin Knapp is probably the hardest working man on the internet after becoming the first person to pass the million-edit-mark on Wikipedia. Since 2005, he's made around 385 amendments per day, each one taking him around four minutes [Citation Needed]. Founder Jimmy Wales congratulated the 30-year-old on his personal feed and Mr. Knapp's been awarded the site's Special Barnstar medal and Golden Wiki award for his achievement. He took the news with a good dose of self-deprecating humor, saying that "being suddenly and involuntarily unemployed will do that to you." Hopefully there's a certificate wining its way in the post from the Guinness people.
NIST mini-sensor measures magnetic activity in human brainPublic release date: 19-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Laura Ost laura.ost@nist.gov 303-497-4880 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
A miniature atom-based magnetic sensor developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has passed an important research milestone by successfully measuring human brain activity. Experiments reported this week* verify the sensor's potential for biomedical applications such as studying mental processes and advancing the understanding of neurological diseases.
NIST and German scientists used the NIST sensor to measure alpha waves in the brain associated with a person opening and closing their eyes as well as signals resulting from stimulation of the hand. The measurements were verified by comparing them with signals recorded by a SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device). SQUIDs are the world's most sensitive commercially available magnetometers and are considered the "gold standard" for such experiments. The NIST mini-sensor is slightly less sensitive now but has the potential for comparable performance while offering potential advantages in size, portability and cost.
The study results indicate the NIST mini-sensor may be useful in magnetoencephalography (MEG), a noninvasive procedure that measures the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain. MEG is used for basic research on perceptual and cognitive processes in healthy subjects as well as screening of visual perception in newborns and mapping brain activity prior to surgery to remove tumors or treat epilepsy. MEG also might be useful in brain-computer interfaces.
MEG currently relies on SQUID arrays mounted in heavy helmet-shaped flasks containing cryogenic coolants because SQUIDs work best at 4 degrees above absolute zero, or minus 269 degrees Celsius. The chip-scale NIST sensor is about the size of a sugar cube and operates at room temperature, so it might enable lightweight and flexible MEG helmets. It also would be less expensive to mass produce than typical atomic magnetometers, which are larger and more difficult to fabricate and assemble.
"We're focusing on making the sensors small, getting them close to the signal source, and making them manufacturable and ultimately low in cost," says NIST co-author Svenja Knappe. "By making an inexpensive system you could have one in every hospital to test for traumatic brain injuries and one for every football team."
The mini-sensor consists of a container of about 100 billion rubidium atoms in a gas, a low-power infrared laser and fiber optics for detecting the light signals that register magnetic field strengththe atoms absorb more light as the magnetic field increases. The sensor has been improved since it was used to measure human heart activity in 2010.** NIST scientists redesigned the heaters that vaporize the atoms and switched to a different type of optical fiber to enhance signal clarity.
The brain experiments were carried out in a magnetically shielded facility at the Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Berlin, Germany, which has an ongoing program in biomagnetic imaging using human subjects. The NIST sensor measured magnetic signals of about 1 picotesla (trillionths of a tesla). For comparison, the Earth's magnetic field is 50 million times stronger (at 50 millionths of a tesla). NIST scientists expect to boost the mini-sensor's performance about tenfold by increasing the amount of light detected. Calculations suggest an enhanced sensor could match the sensitivity of SQUIDS. NIST scientists are also working on a preliminary multi-sensor magnetic imaging system in a prelude to testing clinically relevant applications.
* T.H. Sander, J. Preusser, R. Mhaskar, J. Kitching, L. Trahms and S. Knappe. Magnetoencephalography with a chip-scale atomic magnetometer. Biomedical Optics Express. Vol. 3, Issue 5, pp. 981?. Published online April 17.
** See the 2010 NIST Tech Beat article, "NIST Mini-Sensor Traces Faint Magnetic Signature of Human Heartbeat," at www.nist.gov/pml/div688/magnetic_101310.cfm.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NIST mini-sensor measures magnetic activity in human brainPublic release date: 19-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Laura Ost laura.ost@nist.gov 303-497-4880 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
A miniature atom-based magnetic sensor developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has passed an important research milestone by successfully measuring human brain activity. Experiments reported this week* verify the sensor's potential for biomedical applications such as studying mental processes and advancing the understanding of neurological diseases.
NIST and German scientists used the NIST sensor to measure alpha waves in the brain associated with a person opening and closing their eyes as well as signals resulting from stimulation of the hand. The measurements were verified by comparing them with signals recorded by a SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device). SQUIDs are the world's most sensitive commercially available magnetometers and are considered the "gold standard" for such experiments. The NIST mini-sensor is slightly less sensitive now but has the potential for comparable performance while offering potential advantages in size, portability and cost.
The study results indicate the NIST mini-sensor may be useful in magnetoencephalography (MEG), a noninvasive procedure that measures the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain. MEG is used for basic research on perceptual and cognitive processes in healthy subjects as well as screening of visual perception in newborns and mapping brain activity prior to surgery to remove tumors or treat epilepsy. MEG also might be useful in brain-computer interfaces.
MEG currently relies on SQUID arrays mounted in heavy helmet-shaped flasks containing cryogenic coolants because SQUIDs work best at 4 degrees above absolute zero, or minus 269 degrees Celsius. The chip-scale NIST sensor is about the size of a sugar cube and operates at room temperature, so it might enable lightweight and flexible MEG helmets. It also would be less expensive to mass produce than typical atomic magnetometers, which are larger and more difficult to fabricate and assemble.
"We're focusing on making the sensors small, getting them close to the signal source, and making them manufacturable and ultimately low in cost," says NIST co-author Svenja Knappe. "By making an inexpensive system you could have one in every hospital to test for traumatic brain injuries and one for every football team."
The mini-sensor consists of a container of about 100 billion rubidium atoms in a gas, a low-power infrared laser and fiber optics for detecting the light signals that register magnetic field strengththe atoms absorb more light as the magnetic field increases. The sensor has been improved since it was used to measure human heart activity in 2010.** NIST scientists redesigned the heaters that vaporize the atoms and switched to a different type of optical fiber to enhance signal clarity.
The brain experiments were carried out in a magnetically shielded facility at the Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Berlin, Germany, which has an ongoing program in biomagnetic imaging using human subjects. The NIST sensor measured magnetic signals of about 1 picotesla (trillionths of a tesla). For comparison, the Earth's magnetic field is 50 million times stronger (at 50 millionths of a tesla). NIST scientists expect to boost the mini-sensor's performance about tenfold by increasing the amount of light detected. Calculations suggest an enhanced sensor could match the sensitivity of SQUIDS. NIST scientists are also working on a preliminary multi-sensor magnetic imaging system in a prelude to testing clinically relevant applications.
* T.H. Sander, J. Preusser, R. Mhaskar, J. Kitching, L. Trahms and S. Knappe. Magnetoencephalography with a chip-scale atomic magnetometer. Biomedical Optics Express. Vol. 3, Issue 5, pp. 981?. Published online April 17.
** See the 2010 NIST Tech Beat article, "NIST Mini-Sensor Traces Faint Magnetic Signature of Human Heartbeat," at www.nist.gov/pml/div688/magnetic_101310.cfm.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Roll that spliff extra phatly, pack some fresh ice into the binger, and set the Volcano to "Blasteroid." It's time for tonight's Stoner Channel. We've collected our best high-times material for the discerning pothead on this, the stoney high holiday, so sit back, relax, and pass that shit on the left, yo. More »
This is why companies have to be careful in their external communication: if a spokesperson reveals relevant details about an anticipated product, the news is going to be reported. Such a situation happened just two days ago, when Microsoft employee Nuno Silva went on the record -- on video, nonetheless -- to say that all current Windows Phone handsets would receive the upgrade to Apollo. Not so fast. Silva has since retracted his statement and now insists that his remarks only extend to apps. Yep. What he meant to say was that existing Windows Phone applications should work with the new operating system. Beyond that clarification, however, the company has no new information to share regarding the upgrade potential of current Windows Phone handsets. Makes you wonder if anyone in the company knows for sure.
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Public release date: 19-Apr-2012
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