Perth, Dec. 12 : Former Australian pace great Dennis Lillee once described a teenage Mitchell Johnson as a "once in a generation" bowler, and now seems intent that his young protégé fulfills his ultimate prophecy.

Lillee met Johnson yesterday to discuss tactics for bowling at the WACA Ground, passing on advice and experience from 15 years of bowling on the pace-friendly surface.

"It''s good to have his advice. We just spoke about how things have been going for me at the moment and also just bowling at the WACA,"The Age quoted Johnson, as saying.

Paris, Dec 12 : Data and images from Mars Express suggest that groundwater springs played a much important role in shaping the surface of the Red Planet than previously believed, and may have even sheltered primitive life forms as the planet started drying up.

Light Toned Deposits (LTDs) - martian sediments that most closely resemble sediments on Earth - are some of the most mysterious sediments on Mars. Causes for their origin remain unknown.

These deposits occur on a large scale in Arabia Terra, Chaotic Terrain and Valles Marineris, close to the Tharsis volcanic bulge.

Until now, different mechanisms, including volcanic processes, have been proposed for their formation.

Sarah Palin may have been on the losing end of the Republican ticket, yet she topped the web search chart, confirms Google’s list of the most popular searches in 2008, which the internet search giant released on Wednesday.

At the number two positions of ‘fastest-rising’ searches around the globe was Beijing Olympics 2008. Facebook login and Tuenti, a Spanish social networking website followed the Beijing Olympics 2008.

Johannesburg, Dec. 12: Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief Gerald Majola believes that the decade-old contentious racial quota system - known as "targeted transformation" has produced the results that it was designed for.

The Age quotes Majola as saying the target for the Proteas this season is "a minimum of four black players on the field and a minimum of seven black players in a squad of 15".

By "black players", lovers of the sport should read non-whites.

Perth, Dec. 12 : Australian quick Mitchell Johnson says that he is taking inspiration from his mentor Dennis Lillee to counter the visiting South African team both verbally and on the field.

Johnson, the fourth-leading Test wicket-taker in 2008 with 50 scalps, said Lillee has passed on advice for putting the heat on the South African batsmen in the first Test at the WACA next week.

Johnson has played only one Test at the WACA and is yet to make his first-class debut for WA after crossing over from Queensland.

Seoul  - South Korean GDP growth is expected to slow down from the 3.7-per-cent forecast for 2008 to 2 per cent in 2009, the central bank said Friday.

The central Bank of Korea (BoK) blamed the global economic downturn - which has curtailed the country's exports and cut down domestic consumption - for the lowest growth forecast since 1998.

"The Korean economy is unlikely to recover its growth momentum before 2010 as it undergoes a slowdown both in exports and domestic spending amid the global economic recession," said Kim Jae-Chun, a senior official at BoK.

The current account forecast by the BoK predicts a reversal from a deficit of 4.5 billion dollars in 2008 to a surplus of 22 billion dollars for 2009.