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)

The unmannedlaunched into space atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Floridas Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 11, 2012, kicking off a mission whose objectives and payloads are classified.

The winged craft is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3), since it is conducting the third mission of the Air Force's X-37B program. []

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The firebrand 57-year-old tax attorney's staunch pro-life, , anti-Obamacare, and generally anti-government positions made her a Tea Party darling who  in a vacillating 2012 Republican presidential primary field. But after dropping out of that race last January and winning re-election to her seat, she became ensnarled in an investigation into her campaign finances that . And as  explained just yesterday,  Democrat Jim Graves, who lost to Bachmann byin November and had major backing from his party, posed "the gravest threat to her political career yet" in 2014. Bachmann, who was never fully embraced by the fractured leadership of her own party, denied in a video (below) released  announcing the decision early Wednesday morning that either threat affected her decision not to run:

Be assured, my decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being reelected to Congress. I've always in the past defeated candidates who are capable, qualified, and well-funded. And I have every confidence that if I ran, I would defeat the individual who I defeated last year, who recently announced that he is once again running. And rest assured, this decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff. It was clearly understood that compliance with all rules and regulations was an absolute necessity for my presidential campaign, and I have no reason to believe that that was not the case.

Her Democratic challenger might have been a serious enough threat to not risk a near certain future as an anti-government crusader and high-paid speaker and/or consultant, but the investigation into alleged campaign finance violations during her failed presidential campaign may have been nipping at Bachmann's heels.reported on May 17 that the FBI was joining the FEC, the Office of Congressional Ethics, and an Iowa State Senate ethics committee to investigate whether Bachmann hid payments to an Iowa state senator who worked on her campaign, and whether "the state senator stole the email list of an Iowa home-school group from another Bachmann staffer, Barbara Hekki, prior to the Iowa caucuses in January, 2012." Bachmann was actually plagued by a tailspin of scandal from inside her campaign as her former staffers revolted against her quite publicly: In October 2011, , and , a high level-staffer for her presidential run alleged that Bachmann's financial chairman was stiffing staffers on campaign paychecks because they didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement. Her aides just .

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Bachmann is also leaving as her national political clout is a shade of its former self. That's partly due to the shifting dynamics of the Tea Party, which as The Atlantic Wire's Elspeth Reeve explained in March, has shifted its attention to the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. :

Why the change? They didn't fare so well in 2012. The Tea Party Express  in 2012; only four won. Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus once had 60 members, but 10 lost their seats in 2012 ... That's a pretty bad showing, given the that  of the House was reelected last year.

 released on May 20 showed Graves holding a slight edge, 47 percent to 45 percent, over Bachmann in the 2014 contest — a race in which Michele Bachmann, after being so outspoken on so many things she would not let go away herself, will not be participating. 

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(Reuters) - Biotech stocks are so hot that even some of the bulls are starting to find themselves on edge.

An index of biotech drug makers' shares has climbed nearly 50 percent in the past 12 months to all-time highs as the industry starts to launch drugs developed by identifying genes associated with disease - a revolution made possible by decoding the first human genome more than 10 years ago.

The rise at such a fast pace is triggering the inevitable talk of a bubble, especially when investors are reminded that more than 90 percent of experimental drugs that reach mid-stage testing in humans do not make it past that point.

"Genetic information is providing a big opportunity for new drug development," said Rajiv Kaul, portfolio manager of Fidelity Investments Select Biotechnology Portfolio , in Boston. "There are exciting new opportunities, but you also need to be careful because most drugs fail."

Compared with a year ago, the Nasdaq Biotech Index , which is weighted by market cap, is up 45 percent, the dollar-weighted Arca Biotech Indexhas risen 35 percent, and the Pharmaceutical Indexof large U.S. and European drug makers' shares has increased 32 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 Indexhas gained 25 percent.

A more favourable regulatory environment and lower capital costs are helping fuel the rally. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved 39 drugs last year - a record beaten only in 1996. Deutsche Bank, meanwhile, estimates that interest costs for large-cap biotechs to borrow in the capital markets are about 2 percent lower today than in 2007, and are likely to remain there for several more years.

Still, with the Nasdaq Biotech Index trading well above its previous all-time peak in 2000 - just before the epic dot-com bust - some investors are thinking about locking in profits.

"The biotech industry is in good shape, but there's going to be a pause in news from medical conferences after ASCO (the American Society of Clinical Oncology), and I am thinking of taking profits on some of the large biotech names and switching some of the money into mid-cap companies," said Nathalie Flury, manager of the Julius Baer Biotech Fund at Swiss & Global Asset Management, in Zurich. "There are no big conferences to provide catalysts between June and August."

The annual ASCO meeting, where companies unveil their latest cancer drug research, will take place in early June in Chicago.

"I still think the sector has some room to grow, but it is not going to be as easy as it has been," said David Heupel, senior healthcare analyst at Thrivent Investment Management, in Minneapolis.

He and others said the sector's latest run-up is also being prompted by a newfound attraction to medical biotech from managers of general-interest mutual funds hunting for strong earnings growth potential.

"The reason is because they are looking for significant earnings growth, driven by new products over the next few years at Gilead, Biogen and Celgene," said Michael Yee, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, in San Francisco.

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Gilead Sciences , the world's largest maker of branded HIV drugs, is viewed as the leader in a race to develop a more safe and effective therapy for hepatitis C, a market Wall Street expects to garner billions of dollars in annual sales.

Short interest - a potential red flag that measures shares borrowed by investors expecting a price drop - has changed little over the past year for large-cap biotechs, standing at 2.3 percent of outstanding shares in early May, according to Jefferies & Co.

Short interest in biotech companies with market caps between $2 billion (1.3 billion pounds) and $10 billion has fallen to 9.2 percent from 11.3 percent in the past 12 months, while short interest for companies with market caps of $500 million to $2 billion has increased to 15.2 percent from 12.7 percent over the past year.

Wall Street analysts estimate that shares of large-cap Gilead, which have more than doubled over the past year, trade at about 26 times 2013 earnings and 12 times 2015 earnings.

"That type of earnings growth is very impressive," Yee said. "And it all comes against a backdrop of a really tough macro-environment."

Concerns about overall consumer sentiment have served to cool investor interest in other growth-oriented sectors, including technology. The S&P Information Technology Sector Indexhas gained about 13 percent in the past year.

"That's why you are seeing more money moving into biotech," Yee said.

Even with the rally, some investors say biotech valuations remain attractive.

"These companies seem to be earning a much better return on their capital," Heupel said. "They are not off the charts expensive."

Earnings multiples for biotech shares remain well below the levels seen before the latest stock market crash in 2008.

The discount is even steeper when compared with multiples reached before the bursting of the biotech bubble in 2000. Amgen , for example, traded at an average price-to-earnings multiple of 59 in 2000, compared with its current P/E ratio of 14.4 times expected 2013 earnings, according to Deutsche Bank.

The question is how long the rally will continue.

Consensus estimates call for average combined annual earnings growth of 21 percent for biotechs in the next three years, compared with 9 percent for S&P 500 companies, according to Deutsche Bank.

"Biotech is both the worst business in the world and the best business in the world," Kaul said. "It is high risk ... but when you have a good business, there tends to be value there over long periods of time."

(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London; Editing by Ed Tobin and Jan Paschal)

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- A plan aimed at attracting wind-energy farms to Nebraska is headed to a final vote in the Legislature.

Lawmakers gave second-round approval Tuesday to the bill, which would extend sales tax exemptions to wind-energy companies. One firm, TradeWind Energy, has expressed interest in developing a wind farm in Dixon County, near the Iowa and South Dakota border.

Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha said the bill is designed to keep Nebraska competitive with other high-wind states in the Plains that have offered tax incentives, allowing companies to lower their costs. Nebraska currently charges a sales tax on all equipment and materials used in wind-energy projects.

"Clearly, the potential is enormous and the development lagging behind," Lathrop said.

Some lawmakers questioned whether Nebraska residents would receive enough of the direct benefits and whether the proposal would run afoul of state laws that govern public power. Smith said lawmakers should first study Nebraska's energy policy, although bill supporters argued that doing so would likely cost the state a possible business deal with TradeWind, of Lenexa, Kan.

Lathrop said the 200-megawatt wind farm would provide lease payments to local landowners of $10,000 to $15,000 per turbine, create 200 construction jobs and 12 to 16 permanent jobs, and generate $700,000 a year in local taxes.

Nebraska ranks as one of the nation's biggest wind-producing states, but 26th in the energy it could produce with equipment currently installed. It lags behind its neighboring states: Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas.

The vote came as TradeWind Energy considers building a wind farm in northeast Nebraska. In April, Nebraska officially lost a bid to attract a $300 million Facebook data center to Iowa. A company executive told Iowa reporters that wind energy played a substantial role in its decision.

Some lawmakers said the decision to build its facility in Altoona, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb, was based only partially on wind energy. The company also chose Iowa because it has a more robust network of fiber-optic cables, said Sen. Jim Smith, of Papillion.

Company executives also noted that the Des Moines metro area with nearly 600,000 people was easier an easier flight from San Francisco, Smith said. He said officials were also unaware that Facebook's push for renewable energy would a significant role in the company's decision.

The renewable energy bill has drawn criticism from Republican Gov. Dave Heineman. When the Legislature's Revenue Committee voted 5-3 to advance the bill in March, Heineman said he was "very disappointed" and accused supporters of supporting tax breaks to out-of-state companies.

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The bill is LB104

Neuer turned over a dipping strike by Robert Lewandowski, stopped a Jakub Blaszczykowski shot with his legs, blocked Sven Bender's snapshot and a Marco Reus effort as treble-chasing Bayern wobbled.

Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller was also called into action, tipping a Mario Mandzukic header on to the crossbar in the 27th minute.

As Bayern enjoyed some dominance, Arjen Robben got clear on the right but attempted to dink his shot over Weidenfeller who turned away the effort for a corner.

Then it was Neuer's turn again as he saved with his legs from Lewandowski after a Dortmund counter-attack.

(Writing by Brian Homewood, editing by Ed Osmond ;brian.homewood@thomsonreuters.com; +41 79 917 1402) (Reuters Messaging: brian.homewood.thomsonreuters.com@reuters) (Reporting by Brian Homewood)

To illustrate this reality, astrophysicist Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., highlights five of thein his new book "Brilliant Blunders" (Simon & Schuster, May 2013). Livio tells the stories of errors by Charles Darwin, Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and . SPACE.com caught up with Livio to find out just what qualifies as a brilliant blunder, and what we can all learn from these famous mistakes.

What separates a "brilliant blunder" from a just plain blunder?

The things I tried to refer to as brilliant blunders are blunders that are made when you're trying to think innovatively, trying to have a big idea. These are blunders that are produced when you took a calculated risk with the potential for a big reward. These are not done because the scientist is sloppy or not careful in what they do, or because the scientist is inexperienced. To get a breakthrough, you need to be able to embrace a risk. []

In addition, of course, the people I particularly chose, they were also brilliant by themselves.

Was it difficult to choose just five blunders to profile in your book? Are there many more "brilliant blunders" out there?

Yes, absolutely.

Think of howworks. You make a certain assumption and then perform an experiment, and if those don't agree you have to falsify the theory and then think of another idea. In other words, finding something is wrong is really part of the way the scientific method works. In that sense, definitely, making blunders is a part of the scientific process.

There is something to be learned from every mistake.

Do you think allhave made significant blunders along the way?

I must say there are some that make more of these than others.was particularly annoying in the sense that he almost made no mistakes.

Have you ever made any brilliant blunders of your own?

I've certainly made many mistakes during my scientific career. I'm not sure that any one of those could be called a brilliant blunder.

What do you think the average person can learn from these genius' blunders?

Number one is, even geniuses can make major blunders. I think that should be comforting to most.

The second and perhaps more important thing is about the creative process. In order to get important discoveries or real breakthroughs, you need what we call 'thinking outside the box.' When you think outside the box you necessarily have to accept the fact that maybe you will be making a blunder. But if you accept that, you increase your chances of getting something that is really important, as opposed to playing it safe all the time and getting very slow incremental progress. We really need to think more about how do we allow in a variety of creative processes, realizing that that may lead to a blunder but it also has the potential to lead to something big.

Do you see any overarching theme among the blunders you detail in the book?

I've chosen people who have worked on evolution evolution of life on Earth, or evolution of the Earth itself, evolution of the stars, or evolution of the universe as a whole. And I've chosen them deliberately like this.

One thing that you realize is that all of these different evolutions are really very intimately related to one another. The universe evolved, and that's what allowed galaxies to form within it. As stars evolved, that's what formed those elements that at the end gave rise to planets and eventually to life. Really, we tend to think of these different evolutions as if they are different disciplines, but in fact they are very closely related. And of course they are all driven, ultimately, by the laws of physics, even though we are not at the stage where we can describe biology by the laws of physics. That's another thing I hope will come out of this book.

Follow Clara Moskowitz onand . Follow us,and . Original article on .

Albrecht, who averages under eight minutes and two points a game, had 17 with time still left in the first half. He was 6 of 7 overall from the floor.

Player of the Year Trey Burke scored seven points over the first 2:44 for the Wolverines to match his entire output from Saturday night's semifinal. But he also drew his second foul with 11:09 and was lifted from the game by coach John Beilein.

Not to worry. With his shooting streak, Albrecht improved to 9-for-9 from long range so far in the tournament. He hasn't missed a 3-pointer since March 3. Before this game, he had only scored 67 points all season.

Wayne Blackshear had five points for Louisville, which was having trouble matching Michigan shot-for-shot. The Wolverines were shooting 52 percent, while the Cardinals were at 39.

Watching from the stands were all five members of the Fab Five, the brash group of sophomores who led Michigan (31-7) to the final in 1993 the program's last appearance at the Final Four.

That included Chris Webber, who infamously called a timeout the Wolverines didn't have at the end of Michigan's 77-71 loss to North Carolina in the 1993 final. He has had very little to do with his alma mater in recent years, but was seen getting out of his car and heading into the Georgia Dome shortly before tip-off.

Top-seeded Louisville (34-5) is trying to bring its first title back to the state of Kentucky's "other" school since 1986. Sitting on the bench with the Cardinals is sophomore guard Kevin Ware, the team's inspiration since snapping his tibia in the regional final last weekend.

Cardinals coach Rick Pitino is working the sideline hours after being named to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

Pitino is trying to become the first coach to lead two programs to national championships. He took Kentucky to the title in 1996.

Russ Smith, the Louisville team leader who Pitino has nicknamed "Russdiculous" for some of his wild and wildly effective antics on the court, scores 18.9 points a game for the Cardinals during the season but has picked up the scoring in the tournament, averaging 25 in the five Louisville wins.

The Cardinals are playing without their main reserve, Ware, who broke his leg in the regional final against Duke. Needing a pickup without Ware, reserve swingman Luke Hancock scored 20 points in the 72-68 win over Wichita State. And rarely used walk-on Tim Henderson made two key 3-pointers during the comeback.

"The other night, we were not going to play in the championship game unless a walk-on steps up and makes a play to give us momentum," Pitino said in a pregame interview.

Michigan topped Syracuse 61-56 on Saturday despite an off night from Burke, who finished with only seven points on 1-for-8 shooting.

Burke, a sophomore, seriously considered leaving for the NBA after last season but decided he had unfinished business left in Ann Arbor. He picked up the AP Player of the Year award, among others, and is now one victory away from the ultimate prize in college hoops.

Before leaving the locker room, Beilein gave his team a pep talk: "You play with poise, play with confidence, you do all those things today and we're going to have one heck of a celebration," he said.

Monday night's game is the final act in what has been an ugly season overall in college hoops, with scoring at its lowest (67.49 points per team) since 1951-52 and shooting at its worst (43.3 percent) since 1964-65. The 131.2-points-per-game average during March Madness is the lowest since the 3-point line was brought to the game in 1987, though the teams were on pace to easily surpass that midway through the first half.

The Fed is conducting its third round of massive bond purchases known as quantitative easing to help drive down interest rates and spur lending. But recently improving data on the U.S. economy has led to speculation that it might consider scaling back the program or winding it down earlier than expected.

On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will appear before Congress and the central bank will release minutes of its most recent policy meeting.

"When markets are this elevated, with US markets at record levels, investors generally look for any excuse to exercise caution," said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in Melbourne.

European shares were mixed in early trading. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.1 percent to 6,761.79. Germany's DAX lost 0.4 percent to 8,422.06. France's CAC-40 shed 0.5 percent to 4,004.48. Wall Street also appeared set for losses, with Dow Jones industrial futures down marginally to 15,309 while S&P 500 futures fell 0.1 percent to 1,662.60.

Asian stocks posted uneven results. Japan's Nikkei 225 index eked out a small gain of 0.1 percent to close at 15,381.02, its highest finish in more than five years, as the dollar rebounded against the yen. The Nikkei is up 48 percent for the year.

But Asian stocks elsewhere fell. Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.5 percent to 23,366.37. South Korea's Kospi fell less than 0.1 percent to 1,981.09. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 sank 0.6 percent to 5,180.10. Benchmarks in mainland China and the Philippines rose while those in India and Singapore fell.

A key piece of data comes out of China later in the week when HSBC releases its monthly manufacturing survey Thursday. After some recent ups and downs, analysts said they expected to see a stabilization of growth in factory output.

"I think the market has already turned more cautious," said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong. "I don't think it will add much more impact to the market overall."

Among individual stocks, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. soared 34.3 percent after the company launched the manufacture of a mini-vehicle jointly developed with Nissan Motor Co., Kyodo News said.

Speculation that Japan may restart nuclear reactors shut down following the March 2011 tsunami disaster helped push shares in Tokyo Electric Power Co. up 12.3 percent.The ruling Liberal Democrats are keen to resume operations at many reactors, though such decisions are months away since the government is due to introduce revised nuclear safety regulations in July.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 21 cents to $96.50 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 69 cents to close at $96.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2884 from $1.2897 late Monday in New York. The dollar rose to 102.65 yen from 102.29 yen.

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Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson