Nicki Minaj is officially leaving "American Idol" after a season full of feuds, drama and outrageous outfits.

The news of Minaj's "American Idol" departure comes almost immediately after Mariah Carey announced she was leaving and about a month after Randy Jackson revealed he would be stepping down from the series after serving as a judge for 12 seasons.

Minaj told her Twitter followers she'd be focusing on her music now that she's leaving "Idol."


Fiesty judge Minaj was a controversial member of the "Idol" judges panel in Season 12, which saw Candice Glover win the top honor. And it wasn't only because of Minaj's beef with Carey -- many viewers didn't enjoy her judging style and she was constantly being blasted online.

Rumor has it Keith Urban won't be returning for Season 13 of "Idol" either.

"All four are gone," an insider told The Wrap earlier this month. "They feel they've lost their core audience and they want it back."

"I have no official information of anything," the country singer told the Associated Press earlier this week. "I'm pretty much in the same boat as everybody else here with the rumors that have been floating around. It was like this before I signed on ... so it's not unusual for the 'Idol' folks to be in this place of figuring out what they want to do, then they always pull it together."

So who will be judging "American Idol" Season 13? Vulture recently reported that Jennifer Hudson's deal to join the panel is "essentially done," while a source told The Wrap that "she got the offer and her reps are currently negotiating with [the show's production company] Fremantle."

Vulture had previously reported that Season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson had been approached about judging Season 13 of "American Idol" as well, while Adam Lambert and Clay Aiken's names were both in the mix. But don't expect to see Clarkson on the panel next year: A rep for the former champ told The Hollywood Reporter that she will not be judging Season 13.

Celebrities stripping down is hardly a new thing, but the growing number of women who proudly flaunt their bodies at older ages is. From actresses like Sharon Stone to former models like Christie Brinkley, these women continue to defy convention when it comes to age and beauty -- and blow our minds by how fabulous they look.
Below, a roundup of the best bikini bodies (and sometimes, bathing-suited bodies) over the age of 50.

"Machete Kills," Robert Rodriguez' sequel to "Machete," is a real movie and this is its real cast: Sofia Vergara, Jessica Alba, Lady Gaga, Mel Gibson, Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Charlie Sheen Carlos Estevez. Tommy Tune was presumably unavailable because of his duties on "Arrested Development."

Other than that, not much else to know about this one. Did you like the first "Machete"? Do you like Rodriguez' often charming mix of goofy, grindhouse ultra-violence and sneaky social commentary? Do you want to see what America would look like with Charlie Sheen acting as president? In that case, "Machete Kills" is your movie. Rodriguez and Trejo -- the title sharp object -- debuted the new "Machete Kills" trailer on Yahoo! En Espanol. Watch the trailer, with a Spanish-language introduction from Rodriguez and Trejo, above. The film is out in September.

Kelly Rowland's "Dirty Laundry" is an extremely emotional song that recounts the singer's many struggles, from domestic abuse to pangs of professional jealousy. Beyonce's to blame for the latter of those battles, as it seemed for some time that she -- not Rowland or Michelle Williams -- was the only singer to really deserve the title of Destiny's Child.

Time, however, heals some wounds: Rowland (with the help of The-Dream, who co-wrote the song) sings her way through that pain ("While my sister was on stage, killing it like a motherf--ker / I was enraged, feeling it like a motherf--ker / Bird in a cage, you would never know what I was dealing with / Went our separate ways, but I was happy she was killing it / Bittersweet, she was up, I was down"). In an interview with a Washington Radio station (via ContactMusic), Rowland reveals that she played the song for Beyonce and Williams before releasing it.

Beyonce's reaction is about what you'd imagine. "[She] was just like, 'I never left.' Which was so sweet. It was endearing. She heard how real I was and she was just like "I’m so proud of you.'"

And just "how real" is Rowland keeping it? Real enough to break down while performing the song at a concert in Washington D.C.

The trio have been spending quite a bit more time together lately (or, at least, their sound files have), as they recorded "You've Changed," another Rowland track that features Beyonce and Williams. Of course, they also reunited (very) briefly during Beyonce's Super Bowl halftime show.

Warren Salter's yard had yielded more problems than dandelions. Just inches below the surface, he's dug up glass, spark plugs, even the hood to an old truck.

Salter bought his house in Havelock, N.C., in 2001, but by 2003 he realized that something was wrong.

"Everybody's yard is dropping," Salter told ABC News. "What used to be flat land for the kids to play football in is now big sunken areas."

"Trees I planted about five years ago, now you look at them and they're tilted down hill toward where everything is sinking," he said.

The reason, he said, is because the neighborhood was built on an old landfill, one that Salter said was last used in the 1940s and 1950s. The city of Havelock began building out in the 1960s and Salter's home was constructed in 1973.

"My neighbor knew of the dump before this area was built out. He actually remembers where an old school bus is buried," said Salter. That bus in now believed to be under someone's backyard.

Salter told ABC News that he only has to dig inches in his yard to find traces of the dump like steel, glass or the truck hood.

Salter put a call in to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 after he realized there was a problem, and they directed him to the North Carolina Division of Waste Management. He said the state conducted studies on the neighborhood around 2005. It was discovered during these inspections that some cavities, or land voids, are a mere two feet below the soil, believed to be caused by now decomposed garbage, he said.

"I get the feeling that it won't be long before I'm coming home, driving my truck up to my driveway and will sink right through," he said.

Neighbor Shannon Richards moved into her 1975 house in 2001 and learned about the landfill a year later.

"My problem is with my house settling. I have cracks in my drywall. I even have some doors that won't close anymore. A couple of years ago, I had a pipe that snapped. That was before we knew of the landfill...now I realize that was probably due to that," Richards said.

"My dog has pulled glass out of the backyard," she said.

Richards said the city of Havelock should be held somewhat responsible.

"[The city] issued the permits to the builders. We'd like for them to come in and properly clean it up. If they can't do that, we'd like for them to buy us out," she said.

Havelock city attorney Warden Smith told ABC News that a city meeting is scheduled for June 10, but Salter and his neighbors may find it a bit "anticlimactic."

"As a practical matter, the meeting on the 10th is simply for our office to report the board of commissioners our findings...for these citizens, it may be a fairly disappointing meeting," Smith said.

"My answer as the city attorney is that the city of Havelock has no liability at all," Smith said. "It wasn't done on their watch."

Smith explained that the landfill and the dumping predated the establishment of the city. He said, "Private property owners will have to deal with it themselves."

It’s the brain like never seen before. A group of researchers – Misha Ahrens, neurobiologist, and Phillipp Keller, microbiologist from Howard Hughes medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus, have been able to see individual neurons firing in the brain of a larval zebra-fish, recording activities across the entire fish brain.

They have mapped the exact firing pattern for 80% of the 100,000 neurons in the brain, suggesting that, should an upscaling of this mapping be done, the human brain might finally be in the imaging line.

The imaging technique is ingenious, but theoretically simple. The researchers created genetically modified zebrafish, so that the neurons make a protein which fluoresces when there is a change in the concentration of the calcium ions. Calcium ion concentrations change when a neuron fires, meaning that there will be a small fluorescence when a neuron fires.

Now, a thin sheet of light was sent through the brain and this captures any optical activity in the brain and then records it on a screen. This imaging technique is called ‘light-sheet microscopy’ and the Janelia team was able to upgrade it count at a rate tenfold its original rate. The entire brain of the larval fish was mapped every 1.3 seconds. One whole experiment lasted for 10 hours, generating as much a few terabytes of data.

Ahrens commented on his pet method, explaining why it is so much better than conventional techniques. Available techniques allow one to image at most 2000 neurons at one go, but this one can see the entire circuitry in the brain. As Ahrens puts it:
Read more at http://techie-buzz.com/science/zebrafish-brain-map.html#L4pK064y8VK9FjMe.99

Chalk this story up in the “eww gross” category. You know those pesky little parasitic worms that we humans try so hard to avoid? Well, it turns out those little parasites may be more helpful to humans than once thought. A study published recently in Nature Medicine has revealed that these dreaded creatures may indeed play a role in preventing obesity related metabolic disorders. The research was done by a team from the University of Georgia, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Université François Rabelais in Tours, France, and the Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
Hookworms

In a University of Georgia press release, Donald Harn, Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Infectious Diseases said, “Prevalence of inflammation-based diseases is extremely low in countries where people are commonly infected with worms… But the minute you start deworming people, it doesn’t take too long for these autoimmune diseases to pop up”. The researchers hypothesized that this might be a result of sugar-based molecule called glycan, which is excreted by these parasitic worms. This molecule helps protect the worms from our body’s immune defenses which in turn, reduces the amount of inflammation present in the tissues that surround them. Apparently, this reduction in inflammation also helps the human host. Harn and his fellow researchers believe this may have implications for treating all sorts of metabolic disorders.

The researchers tested their theory on mice. They fed a control group a high fat diet and the other group they fed a glycan sugar diet. Both groups gained weight, bu the control group experienced all of the common problems that come with obesity such as, insulin resistance and high triglycerides. The mice on the special sugar diet did not experience the negative health effects in spite of their increased weight.
Read more at http://techie-buzz.com/health/could-parasitic-worms-treat-obesity-related-disease.html#wh0ucDAdyFMtwqOs.99

 Enjoy the Smart in 3D Experience Explore Smart TV with Magic Motion

Along with the Galaxy Mega 6.3, Samsung has also launched the much-awaited Galaxy Mega 5.8 in India. This handset packs a disappointing 5.8 inch qHD display, 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, 8 megapixel camera and more. Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 is one of the world’s top performing Dual-SIM smartphones. This handset comes pre-loaded with Samsung WatchON which transforms the device into an IR remote controller for a great TV experience.

    Mr. Vineet Taneja , Country Head , Samsung Mobile and Digital Imaging Business, said,
    “Consumers in India as in other parts of the world are preferring the larger screen displays in their Smartphones owing to the time they spend doing more with their devices – staying connected with their work and friends/family, web browsing, extensive multimedia viewing and more. To meet the varying lifestyles of our consumers, we are very pleased to offer the Galaxy Mega which further enriches the product portfolio of our award-winning Galaxy series.”


Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 features a 5.8 inch qHD TFT display, sporting a resolution of 960 × 540 pixels, 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) OS, TouchWiz 5.0 user interface, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus and LED flash, full HD (1080p) video recording and playback, 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls, 8 GB internal memory, microSD card slot, 64 GB expandable memory and much more.

Other features include a 3.5 mm headset jack, Stereo FM Radio with RDS, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, 3G Connectivity, Samsung Media Hub, Samsung Social Hub, Samsung Kies Air, Google Play Store, S Translator, Samsung ChatOn, DLNA, HDMI out, Bluetooth 4.0 with EDR, 1.5 GB RAM, Wi-Fi Direct, USB 2.0 and a 2600 mAh battery. This handset measures 162.6 x 82.4 x 9.0 mm and weighs 182g.

Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 comes with a price-tag of Rs.25,100 (approx. $450) in India. Vodafone and Reliance subscribers will get 2 GB of data per month for 3 months with the purchase of this device. This handset will go on sale from next week in India.
(SOURCE)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cut the ribbon on Thursday outside Atlantic City’s newest tourist attraction: Margaritaville. The $35 million, 40,000-square-foot complex houses two restaurants, multiple bars, a beach-themed casino, and several breezy, laid-back retail stores—all tucked away in a larger gambling mecca called Resorts. The singer and songwriter of the eponymous song was conspicuously absent from the festivities. For Jimmy Buffett, the grand opening was no special occasion: The Atlantic City outpost is the 27th Margaritaville in the world.

Margaritaville Enterprises, founded in 2006 and based in Orlando, sells everything from beachwear to furniture and also oversees at least one Caribbean island resort, two American resorts, and four casinos. You can buy Margaritaville rum and combine it with a Margaritaville drink mixer in your very own Margaritaville blender that costs $349.99. According to the Orlando Business Journal, the company brought in at least $100 million in revenue in 2007. As a private company, Margaritaville doesn’t release information about its holdings, but by all accounts it has only expanded since then.

To think that all of this poured forth from a goofy, three-chord song—a mere 208 words, roughly half the length of this article—written about being lazy and getting drunk. But as Buffett’s Parrothead empire continues to spread, one can’t help but wonder whether a more lucrative song exists. “If there is anything on the same scale as a Margaritaville, it’s not a song—it’s a motion picture,” says Robert Brauneis, a professor of intellectual property at the George Washington University Law School and author of a research paper on Happy Birthday to You, which continues to generate upwards of $2 million a year. “When you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, you have to think in terms of Star Wars, Winnie the Pooh, or Transformers. That’s probably in the same order of magnitude.”

As a recording, Margaritaville doesn’t post stratospheric numbers. After debuting on Buffett’s 1977 album Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude, it peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 100 charts. According to the 2012 BBC documentary The Richest Songs in the World, Margaritaville doesn’t crack the top 10, which is populated by three Christmas songs. The two highest-ranking pop songs are You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, by the Righteous Brothers, and Yesterday, by the Beatles. (No. 1 was Happy Birthday to You.) “If you want to get technical, there are two Margaritavilles,” says Brauneis. “There’s the copyright that protects the song, which is valuable because of the stream of income. Then there’s the trademark that has developed out of the song’s title, and legally that’s a different piece of intellectual property.”

Olivia Wilde and fiance Jason Sudeikis stripped down to soak up the sun in Maui (May 26). The couple was certainly basking in their engagement glow as they strolled in the surf before rinsing off in an outdoor shower.