Central First School in Ashington transformed an old bus into classroom They have also converted a shed, toilets and corridors to ease pressure School is still oversubscribed and is having to turn pupils away Figures have revealed almost one in five primaries have too many pupils The deadline for new primary school applications is tomorrow

By Lucy Crossley for MailOnline

Published: 05:16 EST, 14 January 2015 | Updated: 11:38 EST, 14 January 2015

Schoolchildren are being taught inside corridors, sheds and even a toilet because of overcrowding in classrooms, it has emerged.

One school in Northumberland is not only having to turn pupils away, but is also being forced to teach children in make-shift classrooms, including a garden shed.

Central First School in Ashington, which bought a double decker bus on eBay for use as a temporary classroom last year, has been finding new means of teaching its ever-growing pupil population.

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Schoolchildren, such as these pupils at Central First School in Ashington, are being taught inside cupboards, corridors, sheds and even a toilet because of overcrowding in classrooms

Pupils at work in a school corridor. New figures have revealed that one in five primary schools have more pupils than they have the capacity for

Central First School is not only having to turn pupils away, but is also being forced to teach children in make-shift classrooms, including a garden shed

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Children taught inside corridors, sheds and a TOILET because of overcrowding

A website that served as a report card for Pennsylvania's public schools' academic performance now carries information that details their fiscal performance as well.

At a Capitol news conference on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver, announced the launch of this online tool at http://www.paschoolperformance.orgthat he said will give "people more access to the way we spend their hard earned tax dollars."

For a step-by-step guide on how to access the information, click here.

He noted that schools collectively spend $27.6 billion a year but finding out how that money is spent has been less than transparent. Twice, he had introduced legislation to create a SchoolWATCH website that would present public schools' fiscal information but the bill never made it into law.

He said he often heard from "opponents to transparency" that "there was no way to grant this level of access without undue cost and undue burden to our schools." He called them "pathetic excuses," particularly when he found out the Department of Education already collected much of the same information that his legislation sought to make available.

Of particular note is the website includes individual salary information for professional employees including superintendents, principals, teachers, psychologists, among others. Information that appears on the site now is for 2012-13. Department officials say the 2013-14 information will be posted in May when it becomes available from school districts.

Tim Eller, education department spokesman, said the fiscal information that now appears on the school profiles for the 500 school districts, 176 charter schools, 14 cyberschools, 73 career and technical schools and 29 intermediate units was scattered throughout the department's website.

This site, however, makes it more readily available and easier to find, he said. "This put it in one area where the public can access and gain information with the click of a mouse," he said.

Christiana said he plans to continue to push for passage of a law in this legislative session to ensure this effort to make school fiscal information more transparent becomes a permanent feature.

House Education Committee Chairman Stan Saylor, R-Red Lion, said the committee will consider Christiana's bill at a meeting later this month.

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Online transparency tool sheds light on public school spending

Never too late to lose weight: Couple sheds pounds with Via Christi
Inspired by another Via Christi Weight Management success story, Marvin and Connie Angleton of Wichita committed to losing more than a combined 100 pounds. They did it through the medically...

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Getting Organized With Storage Sheds
http://harveststructures.com - Storage sheds are used for many purposes. It may be both your vehicle park and also a tool shed. View our variety of sheds before you get started your building...

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Trump sheds a single tear playing Priest
Subscribe for more Hearthstone content! Watch Trump #39;s stream here: http://www.twitch.tv/trumpsc.

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Trump sheds a single tear playing Priest - Video

Sheds Summer Houses In Sheffield - Shed World
Looking for a shed or summerhouse to compliment your garden? We have a huge range to choose from, and can fit it for you too! Please get in touch for more information.

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OXFORD, England, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The advent of the jaw among vertebrates was quite a moment -- essential, really. The jaw, the hinge-operated vault of the mouth, opened up a wide world of possibilities for creatures looking to satisfy those ceaseless hunger pangs.

The jaw proved so popular among animals, it can be seen today throughout the Animal Kingdom, from tigers to crocodiles, from sharks to humans.

Now, researchers at Oxford University in England suggest a tiny, ancient fish fossil discovered in Siberia could explain the jaw's evolutionary origin. The 415-million-year-old fish skull was unearthed in the 1970s, but researchers are only just now coming to realize its paleontological importance.

The fish (Janusiscus schultzei) is named for the Roman god Janus and for Hans-Peter Schultze, the University of Kansas researcher who first described the specimen in 1977. Schultze and his colleagues determined that the ancient skull belonged to a bony fish. In the beginning, fish were the first vertebrates to sport jaws, and there were two kinds, those with bones and those with cartilage.

But scientists have yet to ascertain exactly when and where to the two kinds diverged on the evolutionary timeline.

"There are over 60,000 species of living jawed vertebrates, and they encompass pretty much everything you can think of [with a backbone] that lives on land or in the sea," lead researcher Sam Giles, a paleobiology doctoral candidate at Oxford, told Live Science. "But we don't really know what they looked like when they split."

Analysis by Giles and his colleagues, however, revealed that the ancient skull exhibits characteristics of both bony fish and those with cartilage -- suggesting Janusiscus schultzei was one of the two groups' shared ancestors.

"I think it is a highly significant discovery, as the origin and diversification of modern bony-jawed fishes is still shrouded in mystery," said John Long, an paleontologist who wasnt' involved in the study. "But Janiusiscus takes us a big step closer to really understanding this major evolutionary transition, from primitive jawed fishes to the beginning of the modern jawed fish fauna."

The new research was published this week in the journal Nature.

2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Ancient tiny fish fossil sheds light on evolution of jawed vertebrates

Audi's Q7 update for 2016 loses weight, then adds fuel economy and significant tech features. Josh Miller/CNET

DETROIT -- When Audi tackled its update to the Q7 SUV, it improved the car from top to bottom, reducing weight, improving fuel economy, increasing interior space while reducing overall dimensions, adding advanced driver assistant features and completely redesigning the cabin electronics interface.

The 2016 Q7 takes advantage of Audi's multiple technology initiatives, giving it the most cutting edge features in the line-up.

The new Q7 shows up in five- and seven-seat configurations contained in a body measuring slightly shorter and narrower than the outgoing model. At the same time, Audi increased the interior space for passengers and cargo. The body design loses some curves from the previous model, adding angles for an aggressive appearance. The grille takes on a more flat, hexagonal shape, adding to the styling.

The reengineered body and chassis, making use of more aluminum than previously, helps the Q7 lose more than 700 pounds, bringing total weight for the Q7 TDI version down to 4,398 pounds, pretty low for an SUV of this size.

That weight loss means improved fuel economy. Audi notes that the Q7 TDI should get an average of 41.3 mpg, but that number is likely to come in lower with EPA testing.

The Q7 TDI relies on a turbocharged diesel 3-liter V-6 engine producing 255 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque. Audi will also offer the Q7 with a turbocharged 3-liter V-6 gasoline engine and a plug-in hybrid drivetrain, this latter configuration expected to get 138 mpg equivalent fuel economy and boast the most power in the line-up.

Underneath the new Q7 Audi completely reengineered the suspension, changing front and rear components from double wishbone to a multi-link architecture, suggesting that will lead to a more comfortable and agile ride. An air suspension will also be available, adding comfort and adjustable ride height.

Taking advantage of Audi's Piloted Driving initiative, the Q7 gets adds a traffic jam assist feature to adaptive cruise control. This feature will actually take over the steering, keeping the car in its lane, at speeds up to 41 mph. Automated parallel and perpendicular parking is another available assistance feature.

Audi takes a big step forward with the Q7's cabin, fitting it with a similar Virtual Cockpit interface that first came out in the new TT. This interface puts a large LCD in place of the instrument cluster, capable of showing the navigation system map overlaid with virtual gauges for speed and tach. Unlike the TT, the Q7 also features a rectangular LCD that rises up from the dashboard, showing a semi-circular menu with navigation, media, phone and driving data.

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New Audi Q7 diesel sheds pounds, aims for over 40 mpg average

Method devised by UC Riverside scientists isolates new chemicals that could be exploited to control pest species

By Iqbal Pittalwala on January 13, 2015

Most insects, such as the Argentine ant seen here, are covered with a thin layer of hydrocarbon molecules as a waterproofing barrier. Photo credit: Mike Lewis, CISR, UC Riverside.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. Most insects are covered with a thin layer of hydrocarbon molecules as a waterproofing barrier. Embedded in this layer are compounds that the insects use as chemical signals for a wide variety of functions such as communicating species and sex. In insects such as ants that live in colonies, they also differentiate the different castes (e.g., workers, queens, and drones).

But isolating these chemicals and determining their absolute configuration and functions has been a challenge because the chemicals occur in complex mixtures which are hard to separate.

Now a team of entomologists and chemists at the University of California, Riverside has devised a straightforward method for purifying these compounds that could result in new green methods of controlling pest species, like ants, by disrupting the organization of their colonies.

The researchers devised a technique that combined known fractionation methods with reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography powerful tools in analysis. Specifically, they used their method to isolate 36 pure hydrocarbon molecules from the complex blends of 20 randomly chosen species in nine insect orders, so that these compounds could be conclusively identified, and the effects of the individual chemicals could be tested.

Jocelyn Millar is a professor of entomology and chemistry at UC Riverside. Photo credit: Millar Lab, UC Riverside.

In so-called social insects that live in large colonies, such as ants and bees, these chemicals have additional functions, explained Jocelyn G. Millar, a professor of entomology and chemistry, whose lab led the research team. The queen in these colonies, for example, uses the chemicals to preventher workers from laying eggs of their own, ensuring that she remains the only reproducing female in the colony.

The efforts of his research team were complicated by the fact that these chemicals can occur in right-handed (R) or left-handed (known as S, from sinistro, the Latin word for left) forms. Moreover, Millar and his colleagues did not know whether some insects produce the R form and others produce the S, or whether they all produced one form.

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Study Sheds Light on Chemicals That Insects Use to Communicate and Survive

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A doctor's harsh comments about being overweight spurred a Royston mum to shed six stone in time for her wedding.

Catherine Beetles, of Tannery Drift, says she was repeatedly referred to as too fat by a doctor while pregnant with her first child Lauren, 13 months.

But, one year on from joining Slimming World at Royston Evangelical Church, the 28-year-old now believes she has the tools to keep the weight off for good.

She said: I ballooned during my pregnancy at 35 weeks I was 22 stone but was in denial about how much weight I had actually put on.

There was a doctor who really upset me. Every other sentence she would say because youre so fat.

She said I would have a terrible labour because of my weight. After the appointment I was really upset and cried for nearly three days.

But, Catherine admitted some of her pregnancy cravings were on the unhealthy side.

The former dental nurse said: My one big craving was Fanta and it had to be Fanta, not any other fizzy orange. I would only drink normal and not diet.

I also love burgers and I worked near Burger King at The Grafton which did not help.

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Royston mum sheds 6 stone in time for wedding