It has been informed by an Australian psychology lecturer that though abbreviated "text speak" is quicker to write than normal English, it takes twice as long to read.

Nenagh Kemp of the University of Tasmania concluded this through his study under which he took 55 students who took about 26 seconds to read a "text speak" message aloud while it took only 14 seconds for them to read similar messages written out with full English spelling.

On Tuesday, an interesting piece of information was given by the astronomers that Carbon dioxide has been traced on a hot planet outside our solar system -- another piece of evidence supporting the possibility that life could develop elsewhere.

It was informed by NASA that their Hubble Space Telescope has found carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of "hot Jupiter" planet. The planet orbits a nearby star, 63 light-years from Earth.

The planet basically is too hot to support any life as its surface is about 1,800 degrees F (1,000 degrees C).

In the past recent years, tremendous achievement gains have been made by American fourth- and eighth-grade students in math, claims an international survey of student achievement, released on Tuesday. However, performance in Science was flat.

It was put forward by the results that many Asian countries continued to outperform the United States greatly in science and math. Both these subjects are really important for economic competitiveness and research.

The Indian scientists, after seeing the success of India's first lunar mission Chnadryaan-1, are now looking towards the sun and are busy preparing a solar probe for this purpose.

Though India had never ventured beyond Earth's orbit before Chandryaan-1, India's constellation of seven earth-observation satellites is the largest in the world. As of now, Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have reached at an advanced stage of designing a spacecraft named 'Aditya' with the aim to study and analyze outermost region of the sun.

In response to the government’s move to lessen excise duty, car manufacturer Ford India has cut the prices of its models by up to Rs 54,000.

In a statement, Ford India said that the price of the company’s premium hatchback ‘Fusion’ has been slashed by Rs 18,500.

Similarly the mid-sized sedan Fiesta’s cost was cut between Rs 21,000 and Rs 25,000, whereas that of sports-utility vehicle 'Endeavour' has been reduced by Rs 47,000-Rs 54,000.

Australian pop star Kylie Minogue is ready to lend her voice to the beats of ace music director, AR Rahman for the Bollywood multi-starrer ‘Blue’.

The singer will come to India by January 2009 together with her group to record the song.

It is also learnt that Kylie was not the first choice for the song.

Earlier, Rahman had approached Madonna and Rihanna for the same.

Madonna couldn’t accept the offer as she was passing through a bad phase personally, and Rihanna demanded a sum that was unaffordable, so finally Minogue was approached.