Shareholders will vote later this month at an annual meeting in Tampa, Florida, on a non-binding proposal to separate the chairman and chief executive roles after a more than $6 billion trading loss last year raised questions about risk oversight.

At first, Dimon said he would not comment publicly on what he would do if the vote went against him, but when pressed he added that the worst-case scenario would be to leave the bank, the newspaper said, citing sources that attended a private meeting at the company's New York headquarters.

Results of the vote will be announced on May 21, but it remains unclear what the board will do if the proposal passes.

Among the investors who attended Monday's meeting, the Journal said, were top 10 shareholders Fidelity Investments and MFS Investment Management, as well as TIAA-CREF Asset Management and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Proxy advisory firms Institutional Investors Services and Glass Lewis & Co said that the losing "London Whale" derivatives trades that cost the bank $6.2 billion last year showed the board had failed in its oversight of JPMorgan executives. The firms also recommended that some board members not be re-elected.

Two ranking JPMorgan Chase directors issued a letter to shareholders on Friday, arguing against recommendations. The letter, signed by presiding director Lee Raymond and corporate governance and nominating committee chairman William Weldon, said the advisory firms focused too narrowly on the trading losses and that the changes would be disruptive and not in shareholders' best interests.

A similar proposal to split the roles garnered the approval of 40 percent of shareholders last year.

(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; editing by Gunna Dickson)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American chef Richard Blais may be best known for using gimmicks and gadgets in his television appearances but in his first cookbook, "Try This At Home!", he shows his cooking can be fun and tasty without being complicated.

The 41-year-old used often used liquid nitrogen and immersion circulators to make dishes on the U.S. cooking competition show "Top Chef All-Stars," which he won more than two years ago.

Blais, a marathon runner and soccer fan, was born in Uniondale, New York and now lives in Atlanta where he owns The Spence and several other restaurants.

The classically trained chef spoke to Reuters about his reputation as a molecular chef, cooking for his family and being a celebrity.

Q: Is there a misconception about your cooking?

A: My food has gotten a rap that it's really overly complicated, scientific, tech-driven. That's not necessarily the case. I cook simple food at home. People could buy the book and cook from it, not just look at the pretty pictures. It's not just about showcasing the food at the restaurant but also the simple food we make every day as well.

Q: How would you describe your cuisine?

A: My food is generally modern American. We take joy in interpreting classic food. The cookbook might take a beef goulash or a roast chicken or pizzas broken down in different ways. We like to take common comfortable American dishes and reinvent them or re-imagine them.

Q: Are there recipes in your book aimed at people who watched you cooking with liquid nitrogen and immersion circulators on television?

A: Those recipes are in the book as well. They are there to take a dish to the next step. We definitely want to put that style and those techniques in the book. We want to educate more people about those techniques and show them how they are applicable for the home cook.

Q: What specific points or techniques do you want readers to learn from your book?

A: Hopefully the book teaches them to cook a little better ... But the main thing is that cooking should be fun. It's an adventure. It's OK to make mistakes. Hopefully it opens up people's minds to have more fun in the kitchen and be more creative.

Q: What do you cook for your family?

A: We roast chickens. We do make a lot of pasta at home. We eat simple food whether it's a bowl of salad or a grilled cheese sandwich. Even though I'm a chef, we eat like most American families do.

Q: Do you find it interesting that you might be better known than some of your mentors like Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud because of television?

A: It is funny to me, for sure. These are my personal heroes and two of my personal mentors, chefs who are much more experienced, wiser and better. That's one part that's scary and also crazy to me.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring chefs?

A: Make sure you love cooking and feeding people and keeping them happy. It took me 10 years before I popped up on a television show. It was 10 years of six-day work weeks and 16-hour days, doing some of the lowest level work, peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables. If you are in it just to be on a TV show or just to get some popularity because you cook, it's probably not a right choice you made for your career.

Q: But there might be those who look to you and others and think being on television is a good shortcut to achieve success.

A: Most of us who have been on the show 'Top Chef' have been accomplishing things before we got the call to be on a television show. Keep sending in applications. Go for it. Most of the chefs on my team are constantly sending out applications and answering casting calls for various shows. I recommend it. But make sure you are in the industry because you love to cook. For me, tomorrow if there is no more book and no more TV, I'll still be cooking and that'll make me happy.

Potato chip omelet (serves 4)

12 large eggs

3 tablespoons heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon minced fresh chives

6 cups plain kettle-cooked potato chips

2 tablespoons unsalted butter or vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, cream, white pepper, parsley, and chives together until combined. Fold in the potato chips until they are completely covered in the egg mixture, but try not to crush the chips too much. Let stand for 10 minutes, until the chips soften slightly.

2. Heat the butter in an over-proof 12-inch non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, swirling the pan to coat the bottom completely, until very hot. Carefully pour in the egg mixture and spread it evenly in the pan, then immediately reduce the heat to low. Cook until the eggs are set and the bottom is light golden, about 15 minutes. If the bottom is golden but the eggs are still runny on the top transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and bake until the eggs are completely set, 3 to 4 minutes.

3. To serve, invert a large flat plate over the pan and flip the pan and the plate to invert the omelet onto the plate. Let stand for at least 5 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Eric Walsh)

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Cut a staggering $4 trillion from deficits while protecting big benefit programs, subsidizing more health care, plowing extra money into education and avoiding tax increases on everyone except the rich? Not on this Earth.

The postelection reality is starting to shake out now, though how it will all settle can't yet be known.

To reach for his promised deficit reduction, Obama has proposed breaking his tax promise. Toward the same end, his pledge from four years earlier that he wouldn't trim cost-of-living benefits in Social Security has given way to a proposal to do just that.

None of that might happen.

Republicans, who oppose tax increases, and Democrats, who object to curbs on entitlements, could block his path and in doing so save Obama from breaking his own promises.

If they do, though, that big pledge to bring down deficits by $4 trillion would surely have no hope at all.

That's the overarching dilemma in a catalog of campaign promises facing varying prospects over the next few years.

Obama is driving toward success on his energy goals. He's got a decent chance of achieving an immigration overhaul. Activists who once ridiculed his promise to be a "fierce advocate" of gay rights say he's come around and become just that.

Much else is bogged in the budget swamp or is a nonstarter for one reason or another. Anything costing big money comes with big obstacles, and one promise that cost relatively little, gun control, is dust. Yet Obama, in powering through with his health care overhaul, financial regulation and stimulus spending in his first term, has shown that tough causes aren't always lost ones.

A look at Obama's leading promises and what's happening with them:

Debt:

The promise: Cut deficits by $4 trillion over a decade.

Prospects: Deals with Congress to cap spending and raise taxes on wealthier people, along with the resulting savings on interest payments on the debt, have already achieved a projected $2.6 trillion in deficit reduction for the years ahead. But the rest of the $4 trillion will be tough. To get there, he proposes a 10-year $583 billion tax increase, an additional layer of tax increases from slower indexing of tax brackets for inflation and modest curbs to federal health care programs, all helping to produce further interest savings.

Republicans are so far standing firm against further tax increases and liberal Democrats are a tough sell on trimming entitlement programs and other spending. This, as the Congressional Budget Office warns that "such high and rising debt would have serious consequences" if unchecked. Among those consequences are reduced national savings and investment, a potential fiscal crisis and higher interest costs for the government.

___

Economy:

The promise: An approach to deficit reduction that doesn't undermine the recovery or unduly burden the middle class. Also, cut some corporate tax rates, penalize those who shift work overseas and create 1 million manufacturing jobs by 2016.

Prospects: Obama has had mixed success cutting the deficit without slowing growth. He struck a deal with Congress to avoid the "fiscal cliff," a set of tax increases and spending cuts in January. Businesses responded by stepping up hiring and spending.

But he and Republican leaders allowed Social Security taxes to rise, cutting take-home pay for nearly all working Americans. He wasn't able to avoid $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that started March 1.

Manufacturing has been creating more jobs but adding 1 million more by 2016 is unlikely. That would require 250,000 new factory jobs per year, nearly double the current pace. Overall, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.5 percent in April, the lowest in four years of recession and ragged recovery. The economy is growing modestly but steadily. It expanded at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter.

___

Education:

The promise: Raise the high school graduation rate from 78 percent to 90 percent by 2020 and make the country No. 1 in college graduates by that year. Cut federal money to colleges that don't control tuition costs.

Prospects: A rocky path at best. There's little momentum in Congress for the spending required, his pledge to make the U.S. first in college graduates is a long shot and tuitions are climbing without the promised federal penalty.

Obama has proposed $36 billion for Pell Grants in 2013. Yet those grants now cover less than one-third of the cost of a four-year public college. In 1980, they covered 69 percent of the costs.

___

Energy:

The promise: Cut oil imports by half by 2020.

Prospects: He could well deliver on this promise. New drilling technologies have unlocked enormous domestic reserves of crude oil and natural gas. Policies that mandate increasing use of renewable fuels and better vehicle fuel economy have helped slash demand. That has translated into a dramatic reduction in oil imports and increase in diesel and gasoline exports.

But oil and gasoline are global commodities. If Mideast turmoil disrupts oil production there, prices worldwide will rise, even if the U.S. gets little or no oil from that region. The U.S. economy won't ever be free from the effect of high oil prices. It just may be able to get much less oil from abroad.

___

Entitlements:

The promise: No cuts in Social Security cost-of-living increases. Protect Medicare from Republican proposals to turn it into a voucher-like program.

Prospects:Obama is ready to break his Social Security pledge from the 2008 campaign. He favors a new measure of inflation that would gradually trim benefit increases in Social Security, Medicare and other programs. The change, if adopted, eventually would cut Social Security benefits $560 a year for an average 75-year-old, $136 for a 65-year-old.

His approach to Medicare savings is different from one proposed by House Republicans to transform the program. He'd cut Medicare payments to service providers and is proposing that a growing share of seniors pay higher premiums over time, based on their incomes. Such Medicare changes were foreseen before the 2012 election. Meantime, Washington is expanding Medicaid to bring in more of the low-income uninsured.

For years, budget hawks have insisted that huge entitlements must be on the table for true fiscal discipline to be achieved. They're on the table now.

___

Gay rights:

The promise: Be a "fierce advocate" for gay rights. Obama endorsed gay marriage in 2012.

?Prospects: The course for gay marriage will be shaped by the Supreme Court, expected to rule on the matter in June. It's allowed in 10 states and the District of Columbia; many other states seem unlikely to follow suit unless forced by Congress or the court. But cultural attitudes are changing, as did Obama's views. His administration argued in favor of gay marriage rights to the court.

It seems unlikely the court will order gay marriage to be legalized in all states but its ruling could help same-sex married couples on estate taxes, Social Security benefits and other tangible matters. In his first term Obama lifted the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces.

___

Global warming:

The promise: "Continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet."

Prospects: Obama probably will take more steps to reduce the pollution blamed for climate change, but they are unlikely to be of the scale needed to help much in slowing the heating of the planet. Any policy to reduce heat-trapping pollution will target coal burned by power plants and oil refined for automobiles; those industries have powerful protectors in both parties.

Obama has acted on his own, to increase mileage standards and impose pollution control on future power plants. More such executive action is likely; a law is not.

___

Gun control:

The promise: Ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, expand background checks, and more, a postelection pledge made after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Prospects: Obama said he would "put everything I've got into this." His everything wasn't enough. Entrenched support for gun rights and a powerful campaign by the National Rifle Association blocked efforts to pass a single aspect of Obama's package, the first attempt to significantly change the nation's gun laws in over two decades.

Polling found as many as 90 percent of those questioned supported expanded background checks, but even that fell short in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

___

Health care:

The promise: Ensure access to affordable insurance for all and no gutting of Medicare or Medicaid.

Prospects: Obama is likely to achieve his goal of extending coverage to the uninsured. Affordability is another question. Costs are expected to go up, not down, contrary to what Obama promised in his first term.

Some Medicare cuts Obama is willing to enact would hit beneficiaries. Well-to-do seniors and growing numbers of upper middle-class retirees could face higher monthly premiums.

___

Immigration:

The promise: Overhaul the immigration system to provide eventual citizenship to those who came here illegally, tighten borders and smooth legal immigration.

Prospects: Obama failed to deliver on his first-term promise to rework immigration law. His chances of pulling that off are much better now.

Even with a bipartisan Senate group having released legislation to accomplish those goals, however, success is not certain. Even so, the political climate is ripe for change thanks to a shift in Republican attitudes in 2012, when Latino and Asian voters backed Obama in record numbers.?

___

Iran:

The promise: "Do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

Prospects: Sanctions are destroying Iran's economy but not its will to enrich more uranium. By his own timeline, Obama has about a year left to see if diplomacy and sanctions can get Iran to slow its enrichment of uranium and assure the world its nuclear program is peaceful. If the U.S. and its partners cannot succeed, the stage may be set for an American or Israeli military intervention.

___

Taxes:

The promise: Raise taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000. No tax increases for people making less. Ensure millionaires pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes.

Prospects: Obama's 2014 budget, if passed, would break his promise to avoid any tax increases for middle and low-income people. He proposes a new inflation yardstick that would expose most people to higher income taxes, especially poorer workers.

He kept his promise to raise taxes on the rich, though at different income levels than he laid out in the campaign: $400,000 for individuals, $450,000 for couples. Republicans dismiss his proposed minimum rate for millionaires as a gimmick.

___

Associated Press writers Dina Cappiello, Philip Elliott, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Christopher S. Rugaber, Stephen Ohlemacher, Jonathan Fahey, Bradley Klapper, Erica Werner, David Crary, Nedra Pickler, and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

Here he was, perhaps the most popular player in the NFL, in New York as a member of the Jets and maybe the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Joe Namath himself.

There were billboards outside the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey welcoming Tebow, and sandwiches named after him at Manhattan delis. He also had a legion of fans who followed him because of his strong Christian beliefs, and in New York, he would be able to take advantage of countless media and marketing opportunities.

And then, it all went terribly wrong.

Or, more like it, the whole idea was completely flawed from the start. For Tebow. And for the Jets.

Tebow was waived Monday morning, the end of an embarrassingly unsuccessful one-season experiment in New York that produced more hype and headlines than production on the field. And it all ended quietly, with a three-paragraph news release.

"Unfortunately," coach Rex Ryan said in a statement, "things did not work out the way we all had hoped."

It also left Tebow's football future very much in doubt.

A year after he threw a TD pass to win a playoff game in overtime for Denver, the Heisman Trophy winner with two college national titles at Florida and a nationwide following may have suited up for the last time.

Tebow took to Twitter a few hours after being waived, citing a bible verse: "Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding," Tebow wrote, "in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."

No NFL team has made a pitch to get him. The only nibble so far came from the Montreal Alouettes. They hold his rights in the Canadian Football League and said he could come compete for a job as a backup.

"Had this happened back in February, he might have had a chance to at least participate in free agency," said 2002 NFL MVP quarterback Rich Gannon, now an analyst for CBS Sports and SiriusXM NFL Radio. "I don't think there would have been a strong market for him, but at least he would've had that opportunity."

Gannon added that it's an even tougher situation for Tebow now because more than 20 quarterbacks were either drafted or signed as undrafted free agents in the last few days.

"Look, it's a two-way street, though," Gannon said. "It's a business. The Jets were trying to find somebody, a dance partner. Sometimes that goes into the draft and teams are calling around. I'm sure the Jets were trying to shop Tebow, and I'm sure they kept getting denied."

This is the same guy who led the Broncos to the postseason in 2011, but became expendable when Denver signed Peyton Manning as a free agent. The popular backup quarterback was acquired by the Jets in March 2012 for a fourth-round draft pick and $1.5 million in salary. He was introduced at the Jets' facility to plenty of fanfare at a lavish news conference, with Tebow repeatedly saying he was "excited" to be in New York.

It turned out to be one of the few high points in Tebow's stay with the Jets. Along with his shirtless jog from the practice field in the rain during training camp, of course.

The Jets never figured out a way to use Tebow effectively, and he never forced the issue by being a good enough player in practice to make Ryan and his coaches put him on the field more in games.

"If he were to happen to call me, I would say, 'Look, you're starting over,'" former NFL GM Ted Sundquist said. "Tim Tebow needs to redefine who Tim Tebow is, in my opinion. He's no longer a first-round quarterback."

Even recently retired Jets special teams coordinator Mike Westhoff labeled the way the team used Tebow an "absolute mess."

It all cost Tebow his job, along with former general manager Mike Tannenbaum and former offensive coordinator Tony Sparano both fired in part because of their roles in what was one of the NFL's messiest quarterback situations in recent memory. It also seriously clouds Tebow's NFL future, which might be extended only, in some people's opinion, if he considers a position change.

"I don't see any team giving him a chance because teams don't want to deal with the following that comes with Tebow," ESPN analyst and former NFL offensive lineman Damien Woody said. "Maybe Canada."

Added Gannon: "I don't know. He's just in a bad spot."

Tebow was brought to New York to be a dynamic addition to the offense, a complement to Mark Sanchez and a merchandising touchdown for the Jets. Instead, he attempted just eight passes for 39 yards and rushed 32 times for 102 yards and stunningly had no touchdowns.

Through it all, Tebow tried to hide his frustration, but acknowledged late in the season that things didn't turn out quite how he expected in New York.

"I think it's fair to say," Tebow said, "that I'm a little disappointed."

It's an amazing fall for a player whose No. 15 Broncos jersey ranked second in national sales to Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers in 2011.

"He seems like a great kid," Sundquist said, "and it seems like he could bring some positives to a club if he can just bury this whole thing about him being in your quarterback mix and just let him be No. 39 on your roster, one of your back-end guys who can go somewhere and help you win."

The Jets and new general manager John Idzik drafted former West Virginia star Geno Smith in the second round of the NFL draft Friday, giving New York six quarterbacks on its roster and creating uncertainty about Sanchez's future as well.

Tebow, who dropped about 15 pounds in the last few months, arrived at the team's facility in Florham Park, N.J., early Monday and was told he had been cut.

"Tim is an extremely hard worker, evident by the shape he came back in this offseason," Ryan said. "We wish him the best moving forward."

But, where to next for Tebow?

The Jacksonville Jaguars have already ruled themselves out of giving Tebow a happy homecoming. But maybe the Chicago Bears, whose new head coach Marc Trestman tutored Tebow before the NFL draft in 2010, could give him a look as their backup.

Perhaps the San Diego Chargers would take a chance on him, adding to the circus-like atmosphere they'll likely have because they drafted Manti Te'o. New coach Mike McCoy was Tebow's offensive coordinator in Denver during the 2011 season, when the quarterback took over the offense and led the Broncos to comeback after comeback.

What about Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots? They're no strangers to turning discarded players Wes Welker, Danny Woodhead, even Randy Moss into big-time playmakers, and it would give Belichick another chance to tweak the Jets.

Then, there's always the Canadian Football League, but whether Tebow would even be open to a move north of the U.S. border is uncertain.

"If you can find a club that's mature enough to handle it as an organization, then you're going to find the right spot for him," Sundquist said. "What I mean by that is all the media mania and that sort of thing. The club says, 'Look, this is the reason we're bringing him on. We feel he can bring X, Y, Z and A, B, C to the table.' Explain it to Tim, explain it to the media, explain it to your fan base and explain it to your organization."

Now, researchers have reconstructed words, such as "mother," "to pull" and "man," which would have been spoken by ancient hunter-gatherers, possibly in an area such as the Caucuses or the modern-day country of Georgia. The word list, detailed today (May 6) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help researchers retrace the history of ancient migrations and contacts between prehistoric cultures.

"We can trace echoes of language back 15,000 years to a time that corresponds to about the end of the last ice age," said study co-author Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.

Tower of Babel

The idea of a universal human language goes back at least to , in which humanity spoke a common tongue, but were punished with mutual unintelligibility after trying to build theall the way to heaven. []

But not all linguists believe in a single common origin of language, and trying to reconstruct that language seemed impossible. Most researchers thought they could only trace a language's roots back 3,000 to 4,000 years. (Even so, researchers recently said they had traced the roots of ato many Eurasian languages back 8,000 to 9,500 years to Anatolia, a southwestern Asian peninsula that is now part of Turkey.)

Pagel, however, wondered whether language evolution proceeds much like . If so, the most critical words, such as the frequently used words that define our social relationships, would change much more slowly.

To find out if he could uncover those ancient words, Pagel and his colleagues in a previous study tracked how quickly words changed in modern languages. They identified the most stable words. They also mapped out how different modern languages were related.

They then reconstructed ancient words based on the frequency at which certain sounds tend to change in different languages for instance, p's and f's often change over time in many languages, as in the change from "pater" in Latin to the more recent term "father" in English.

The researchers could predict what 23 words, including "I," "ye," "mother," "male," "fire," "hand" and "to hear" might sound like in an ancestral language dating to 15,000 years ago.

In other words, if modern-day humans could somehow encounter their Stone Age ancestors, they could say one or two very simple statements and make themselves understood, Pagel said.

Limitations of tracing language

Unfortunately, this language technique may have reached its limits in terms of how far back in history it can go.

"It's going to be very difficult to go much beyond that, even these slowly evolving words are starting to run out of steam," Pagel told LiveScience.

The study raises the possibility that researchers could combine linguistic data with archaeology and anthropology "to tell the story of ," for instance by recreating ancient migrations and contacts between people, said William Croft, a comparative linguist at the University of New Mexico, who was not involved in the study.

"That has been held back because most linguists say you can only go so far back in time," Croft said. "So this is an intriguing suggestion that you can go further back in time."

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter . Follow LiveScience ,  & . Original article on .

Many scientists suspect that the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 kilometers)formed primarily from layers of lakebed silt, which is one of the main reasons that the mountain was selected as Curiosity's ultimate destination. But the new study holds that wind probably did most of the heavy lifting.

"Our work doesn't preclude the existence of lakes in Gale Crater, but suggests that the bulk of the material in Mount Sharp was deposited largely by the wind," study co-author Kevin Lewis, of Princeton University, said in a statement. []

A mysterious mountain

Thelanded inside 96-mile-wide (154 km) Gale Crater last August, kicking off a two-year surface mission to investigate Mars' past and present potential to host microbial life.

The 1-ton robot has already checked off its main goal, finding that a spot near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay wasbillions of years ago. But the mission team is still gearing up to send Curiosity on a 6-mile (10 km) trek to the base of Mount Sharp, which was identified before launch as the rover's main science target.

Observations from NASA's(MRO) suggest that Mount Sharp's foothills were exposed to liquid water long ago. And as Curiosity climbs up through the mound's many layers, the rover will be able to read the Red Planet's environmental history like a book, mission scientists reasoned.

In the new study, researchers used other MRO observations to devise a new theory of Mount Sharp's formation. The team determined that the mound's layers aren't flat-lying stacks, as would be expected in lakebed deposits. Rather, they fan outward in an odd radial pattern from Mount Sharp's center, researchers said.

This finding is consistent with results from the team's computer model, which suggested that wind blowing down Gale's slopes could build a mound in the crater's center while leaving areas near the rim relatively bare.

So Mount Sharp may not be the eroded remnant of an even bigger mound that once filled Gale from rim to rim.

"Every day and night you have these strong winds that flow up and down the steep topographic slopes. It turns out that a mound like this would be a natural thing to form in a crater like Gale," said Lewis, who is a participating scientist on Curiosity's mission. "Contrary to our expectations, Mount Sharp could have essentially formed as a free-standing pile of sediment that never filled the crater."

Testing the theory

Curiosity team member Dawn Sumner, who was not involved in the new study, said it presented interesting ideas that the rover should be able to test out in the future.

"This paper provides a new model for Mount Sharp that makes specific predictions about the characteristics of the rocks within the mountain," Sumner, a geology professor at the University of California-Davis, said in a statement. "Observations by Curiosity at the base of Mount Sharp can test the model by looking for evidence of wind deposition of sediment."

However Mount Sharp formed, the hugemountain should be a productive hunting ground for Curiosity, Lewis said.

"One way or another, we're going to get an incredible history book of all the events going on while that sediment was being deposited," he said. "I think Mount Sharp will still provide an incredible story to read. It just might not have been a lake."

The new study was published in the May issue of the journal Geology.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter  and . Follow us , or . Originally published on .

Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser broke his right thumb in the third period of the 5-4 overtime win in Game 2 on Thursday night, and is out for rest of the playoffs.

DeKeyser signed with the Red Wings on March 29, soon after finishing his college career at Western Michigan.

"It was a big loss and it's hard to believe a kid out of college would be a big loss, but he is," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said Friday night after stepping off the team plane.

Babcock has said the Red Wings wouldn't have rallied for a spot in a 22nd straight postseason without DeKeyser.

Now, they have to try to advance without him on the blue line.

Babcock is putting another rookie in the lineup, Brian Lashoff, instead of one of two veterans, Ian White and Carlo Colaiacovo.

"He's smart, knows how to play and competes hard," Babcock said. "He makes a good first pass and he's a good penalty-killer."

Detroit blew a three-goal lead in the third period of Game 2 against the Ducks, who sent the game to an overtime that ended quickly. Gustav Nyquist scored a power-play goal 1:21 in the period.

The seventh-seeded Red Wings hope home ice is an advantage against second-seeded Anaheim that helps them take a 2-1 lead in the first-round series Saturday night in Game 3.

"If you would've been in their building, you would've known how deafening it is," Babcock said. "We expect that to be what it should be like for us in our building in warmups."

The Ducks are simply planning to play as well as they did in their last game at Joe Louis Arena. They beat Detroit 5-2 on Feb. 15 breaking a 2-all tie after two periods before losing two games in the regular-season series at home by a combined score of 7-2.

"We'll draw back on what we did earlier in the season," Anaheim captain Ryan Getzlaf said. "We went into a tough building and played real well. We know we can win there, but we're in the playoffs now and it'll be fun."

Both teams said they learned lessons Thursday night.

Detroit scored two goals in the first 4:20 of the game, went ahead 3-0 just more than a minute into the second period and had another three-goal cushion 20 seconds after the puck dropped in the third.

"We weren't ready to play at the start of the game, and the start of the periods," Getzlaf said. "They scored three goals in the first minute of each period. We've got to be ready to hit the ice and be flying for the next game."

And if the Red Wings get ahead again, they plan to keep the pressure on Anaheim after giving up three goals in a 10-minute span of the third period.

"You can't stop playing," Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. "We got up 4-1 there in the start of the third, then we just kind of relaxed, sat back and let them come wave after wave."

What if the Red Wings ended up losing in OT and falling behind 0-2 in the Western Conference best-of-seven, first-round series?

"I'd rather not think about that right now," Kronwall said. "We found a way to win, now it's 1-1. We haven't really won anything yet. We have to stay grounded and make sure we focus on the task at hand."

The Ducks, meanwhile, were lamenting the loss that looked like it could've been quite a comeback win.

"We lost an opportunity to put a stranglehold on the series," said Bobby Ryan, who scored the tying goal with 2:22 left in regulation for the Ducks. "And, we let it get away."

___

Follow Larry Lage on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/larrylage

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With signs of a slower economy mounting, the near-term outlook for U.S. stocks isn't rosy, but investors may find comfort next week from the world's major central banks.

The Federal Reserve will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the report of weaker-than-expected, first-quarter growth could reinforce expectations the Fed will keep purchasing bonds at a pace of $85 billion a month.

Low interest rates and ample liquidity provided by the Fed and other central banks have buoyed global equity markets because low borrowing costs for businesses and consumers lead to richer corporate profits. Major U.S. stock indexes hit record highs earlier this month.

"As long as it looks like central banks are on your side and on investors' side as far as providing more liquidity, that's going to help improve sentiment," said Brian Jacobsen, chief portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

"I don't think (Fed officials) have got enough data since the last meeting to really justify changing policy. I really don't think they're going to look at slowing the pace of purchases until probably September."

A strong commitment from the Fed to continue its stimulative policy, coupled with corporate earnings that have mostly exceeded lowered forecasts, could help Wall Street extend a rally despite signs that the U.S. economic recovery is losing momentum.

Even though the market ended flat on Friday, its performance for the week was positive. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 1.7 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.1 percent and Nasdaq Composite Index rose 2.3 percent

The economy expanded at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said on Friday, short of expectations of 3.0 percent and setting a cautious tone.

A heavy slate of key economic indicators will be released next week, including personal income and spending, the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing and services activity indexes, pending home sales, the Chicago purchasing managers' index and consumer confidence from the Conference Board.

The highlight of the week will come on Friday when the Labor Department releases its employment report for April.

Economists polled by Reuters are looking for job growth of 150,000, up from 88,000 in March. The unemployment rate is likely to remain unchanged at 7.6 percent.

"Today's (GDP) data suggests maybe the momentum is much weaker that what was priced in," said John Praveen, chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investments Advisers in Newark, New Jersey.

"We have had a very strong rally, so people are looking for any trigger for profit-taking," he said. Praveen said the market could see a 5 percent pullback in the months ahead should upcoming data prove weaker than expected.

Stocks have had a wild run over the past week after hackers attacked the website of stock broker Charles Schwab Corpand a false report on the Associated Press's Twitter account about explosions at the White House sent the market into a brief tailspin.

On Thursday, a software glitch shut down the Chicago Board Options Exchange for half the day, preventing trading in options on two of the stock market's most closely watched indexes and delivering the latest blow to confidence in the way U.S. financial markets operate.

EUROPE, EARNINGS

The European Central Bank meets on Thursday and investors will watch to see if it delivers an interest-rate cut as the euro zone economy deteriorates further. Further monetary easing would encourage investors to buy riskier assets and boost stocks.

"The market has been rallying on the fact the ECB might actually start to do something; if the U.S. market reacts in the same way, that might get the market rallying," said John Canally, investment strategist and economist for LPL Financial in Boston.

With earnings reporting now half over, investors will look to see if companies can continue to exceed profit estimates despite lackluster revenue.

According to Thomson Reuters data, of the 271 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the first quarter, 69 percent have beaten analysts' expectations, above the 63 percent average since 1994.

However, only 43.9 percent have topped analysts' revenue forecasts, well below the 62 percent average since 2002 and the 52 percent rate for the last four quarters.

Analysts now see earnings growth of 3.8 percent this quarter, up from expectations of 1.5 percent on April 1.

Next week Dow components reporting results will be Pfizerand Merck . Other companies scheduled to report include Loews Corp , Aetna Inc , Chesapeake Energy , Visa Inc , Viacom Incand Kraft Foods Group Inc .

David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial, based in Boston where he helps oversee about $700 billion in assets, said the lackluster figures suggest the second quarter may not be as robust as hoped.

"Right now, markets are going through an adjustment process, trying to figure out just how robust the economy is here and overseas as well," Joy said. "You have investors sort of biding their time. They are invested, but not with complete conviction."

(Reporting By Wanfeng Zhou; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

But Ware wasn't jealous. She was happy for their success, though she'd lost track of her own dream of recording music.

"I just forgot about it," the 28-year-old said in a reflective tone, adding English indie rock band The Maccabees to the list of her successful musician-friends.

"They were all doing it. And I was like, 'Good for them 'cause they are doing it and they are great' ... and I just didn't think I could do that. I didn't think I had the guts or the talent to do it."

Then English singer-songwriter Jack Penate, a friend of Ware's, invited her to sing background for a radio session.

"I took the day off work, went and had so much fun," she recalled.

She began singing background at various festivals, on a tour in Europe and then a tour in the U.S.

"I had to quit my job because I had no holiday left," said Ware, who had been working at a television production company.

Ware said she's confident now, and has a career as a singer to thank for that.

She released her debut, "Devotion," last August in Europe, where it hit No. 5 on the charts and was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize. She's been buzzed about on music blogs, and "Devotion" was released in the U.S. this month with two new tracks.

"It's a bit of everything," she explained of her sound. "I got kind of greedy and I tried to put everything in there from folk to pop to soul, hip-hop."

Those who have influenced her included Billie Holiday, Dusty Springfield, Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott, and Ware is part of a growing downbeat, electronic soul movement that includes acts like Rhye and Quadron, who were cheered on by Ware at a recent showcase in New York.

Ware met Adele through Penate and went to high school with Welch of Florence + the Machine, who has been checking in on her friend.

"She's been texting me like, 'How are you? Where are you in the world?'" Ware said. "She's been really good to me."

Ware wrapped up a short U.S. tour last month and performed both weekends at the Coachella music festival. She called the U.S. audience "warm."

"I remember we started our run in January in Boston. First night I got flowers, I got roses," she said. "I got gay men voguing at the front. It was great. Guys singing to me like, 'Girl!'"

Ware is getting a boost in the U.S., thanks to her collaboration with rapper A$AP Rocky, who appears on the remix to her song "Wildest Moments."

"For me, a white girl from South London to have the hottest rapper on my album, dreams can come true," she said. "I definitely feel like Ashanti, I feel like Aaliyah."

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Online:

http://jessieware.com/

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