Washington, Feb 11: A new study has suggested that Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano on Mars, could shelter some sort of life form.

Rising three times higher than Mount Everest, Olympus Mons was active at least 40 million years ago, and perhaps more recently.

Magma may still be close enough to the surface to support heat-loving bacteria like those found near hydrothermal vents on Earth.

But, bacteria likely need water to live in, too.

Now, according to a report in Discovery News, Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan think they may have found it, locked in thick layers of clay-rich sediments beneath the mountain.

Washington, Feb 11 : If you feel that you don''t have enough time to finish a task in hand, then chances are your finished work won''t be up to the mark, says a new study, which claims that it''s the perception of time pressure that impairs performance.

In a first of its kind study, Michael DeDonno, a doctoral student in psychology at Case Western Reserve University looked at how perceived time pressure affected the performance of 163 subjects in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT).

IGT is a popular psychological assessment tool that is used to investigate the effect of perceived time pressure on a learning-based task.

Washington  - North Korea may be preparing for another missile test, the CNN news channel reported late Tuesday, citing an unnamed senior US official.

Photographs taken by a US spy satellite showed activity at a site used previously for testing Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missiles, the Pentagon official was quoted as saying.

While there was so far no evidence of a missile being transported to the site by the communist country, the preparations were similar to those preceding a test in 2006.

Washington -  expects that President Barack Obama will decide in the coming days over the final number of troop reinforcements for Afghanistan.

There will probably be a decision "in the course of the next few days," Gates told journalists Tuesday.

There were various options before Obama, and Gates said he has given the president his recommendations.

Washington  - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Tuesday the United States could "reconsider" placing a missile-defence system in Eastern Europe if Iran dropped its pursuit of nuclear weapons, but cautioned that the Islamic state is a "long way" from showing a desire to change.

Clinton met with Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country has agreed to host the radar site for the system.