Despite its thinness, the corona can pack a deadly punch. Occasionally, the Sun's surface erupts in a solar quake, a paroxysm of gigantic storms and flares. Sometimes these are powerful enough to eject vast blobs of corona gas into space at millions of miles per hour.

In 1859, one such eruption hit the Earth square on, generating a brilliant aurora in the night sky (bright enough to wake sleeping Gold Rush miners in the Klondyke) and shorting out much of the world's nascent telegraph system. Though solar storms can't hurt humans directly, the 1859 event was powerful enough to melt copper cables.

Should such an event happen today, it would cause utter chaos and could well precipitate an economic meltdown. Our electricity grids would be fried and phone and internet lines would be shut down. But what's the likelihood of that happening? Unfortunately, it's impossible to say - though some scientists predict another corona eruption in the summer of 2012, when the Sun is predicted to enter a new 'manic' phase of turbulence.

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The rainbow trout's enhanced muscle mass is between 15 to 20 per cent higher than that of a standard fish, thanks to Professor Bradley's research into the inhibition of myostatin, a protein that slows growth. The increased muscle mass will have commercial benefits in that larger fish can be grown without increasing the amount of food they need. While the physical differences in the fish include a prominent dorsal hump, making it look as if it has muscular shoulders, and the appearance of 'six pack abs', no differences in behaviour have been noted.

The team injected thousands of rainbow trout eggs with various DNA types designed to inhibit myostatin. Of the eggs that hatched, those which carried the gene began to develop 'body-builder' physiques. Professor Bradley added: 'The results have significant implications for commercial aquaculture and provide completely novel information on the mechanisms of fish growth.'

But modern mainstream Christianity has apparently pensioned off Old Nick as an embarrassing reminder of a past when it used too much stick and not enough carrot in spreading the Good News. You have to go back to 1972 to find a Pope offering any detailed reflection on Satan. Paul VI described him as 'not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting'.

So the remarks by 85-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, for decades the chief exorcist in Rome, have taken many by surprise. Far from being superstitious medieval nonsense, Amorth has said in promoting his new book, Memoirs of An Exorcist, the Devil is 'lodging in the Vatican' and can be seen in the activities of paedophile priests, over-ambitious clerics and 'cardinals who don't believe in Jesus'.

Even Amorth's title sounds as if it belongs more to Hollywood blockbusters than the contemporary life of the Catholic Church which makes only the most fleeting of references in its encyclopaedic Catechism, published in 1993, to the Devil as the 'seductive voice' who tempted Adam and Eve (article 391). But despite its official silence about Lucifer, the fallen angel who was ejected from heaven and will, according to the Book of Revelation, roam the earth until the final day of Judgement spreading evil and lies, the Vatican has never dismantled its medieval network of exorcists in every diocese. It just prefers not to mention them - until Father Amorth blew their cover.

In Rome, of course, they are less coy about such matters, and that is where I finally got to meet Father Amorth. He's a giant of a man with a deeply lined bulldog face who was working out of a subterranean office in an anonymous church building on the outskirts of Rome. 'Our language may be more discreet today,' he told me, referring back to the Devil's medieval heyday, 'but the idea remains the same.' He had, he said, carried out more than 50,000 exorcisms, but added that the centre of Catholicism was unusual because it was special focus for Satan's schemes. Only 84 of the 50,000, he added, had been genuine cases of possession, but then he described, in that very room the day before, exorcising 'the demon of the media' from a young man who had, as a result, vomited fragments of radio equipment. At a distance, it sounds almost comical. At the time, I was so disturbed I brought the interview to a rapid conclusion.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected two legal challenges by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, who claimed the references to God disrespect his religious beliefs. "The Pledge is constitutional," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority in the 2-1 ruling. "The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our Republic was founded."

In a separate 3-0 ruling Thursday, the appeals court upheld the inscription of the national motto "In God We Trust" on coins and currency, saying THAT THE PHRASE IS CEREMONIAL AND PATRIOTIC, NOT RELIGIOUS.

The article continues, "Between Barroso and Van Rompuy, between Commission and Council, the real power struggle is being conducted ... Van Rompuy builds his influence steadily. He has created a culture shock in the Council Building as "instructions are now coming from above". Adding that, now installed in his second term as Commission President, Barroso has "suddenly discovered his heart for the European Parliament" at the expense of member state governments.

In her speech to the European Parliament yesterday, Ashton said, "People raise the question whether the EU should have its own permanent operations HQ. This is a serious issue that deserves a serious debate." Herve Morin, the French Defence Minister, has recently stepped up calls for the creation of a central military HQ, seen as a step towards a European army.

The article notes that EU officials have said that as Europe's Foreign Minister, Lady Ashton's job "is not to put the British view" ahead of negotiations on the HQ next month. "She has an open mind on the issue," said an aide.

The UK is currently struggling to find enough allies among other member states to water down the Directive's restrictions on foreign funds and fund managers - restrictions that would cut off most foreign funds and managers from the EU market, and therefore radically limit the choice for EU-based institutional investors such as pension funds and charities. The FT reports that Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, has delivered a blunt warning to the European Commission that the protectionist elements of the Directive could cause a transatlantic rift by discriminating against US groups and restricting the access of EU investors to funds based outside Europe.

Paul Myners, UK Financial Services Minister, told a meeting of private equity executives yesterday that he would fight "line by line and minute by minute" to defend the free movement of capital. But he also warned that "nobody in this room is going to get the directive they want".

French MEP Jean-Paul Gauzes, who is the European Parliament's rapporteur for the directive, said that "Finance Ministers need to make progress now" on the AIFM Directive. He added that, "We need to prohibit hedge funds from naked short-selling", citing hedge funds' bets on Greek default, Handelsblatt reports. Gauzes also signalled a willingness to water down restrictions entailed in the draft Directive on German so-called 'special funds', which account for about 90% of all alternative investment funds in Germany.

You might think you would have noticed if the Earth suddenly tilted by 3 inches. But that's not how the "figure axis" works. "The figure axis defines not how Earth is tilted, but rather how it is balanced," says Gross.

Consider the following: Earth is not a perfect sphere. Continents and oceans are distributed unevenly around the planet. There's more land in the north, more water in the south, a great ocean in the west, and so on. As a result of these asymmetries, Earth slowly wobbles as it spins. The figure axis is Earth's axis of mass balance, and the spin axis wobbles around it. "The Chilean quake shifted enough material to change the mass balance of our entire planet," Gross says.

A shifting figure axis is nothing new. On its own, the figure axis moves about 10 centimeters per year as a result of "Ice Age rebound." After the last great glacial period some 11,000 years ago, many heavy ice sheets disappeared. This unloaded the crust and mantle of the Earth, allowing the planet to relax or "rebound" back into a more spherical shape. The rebounding process is still underway and so the figure axis naturally moves.

On February 27, 2010, the Chilean quake may have moved the figure axis as much in a matter of minutes as it normally moves in a whole year. It was a truly seismic shift - no pun intended.

Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades. The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.

Rioters used sledge hammers to smash the glass fronts of more than a dozen shops, banks, jewelers and a cinema. Youths also set fire to rubbish bins and a car, smashed bus stops, and chopped blocks off marble balustrades and building facades to use as projectiles. Organisers said some 60,000 people took part in the protest. But an unofficial police estimate set the crowd at around 20,000 - including those that took part in a separate, peaceful march earlier Thursday. Police do not issue official crowd estimates for demonstrations.

Thursday's strike - the second in a week - brought the country to a virtual standstill, grounding all flights and bringing public transport to a halt. State hospitals were left with emergency staff only and all news broadcasts were suspended as workers walked off the job for 24 hours to protest spending cuts and tax hikes designed to tackle the country's debt crisis. Riot police made heavy use of tear gas during the start-and-stop clashes throughout the demonstration, including outside Parliament.

In response to one key question, 48% of Americans now believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question. These results are based on the annual Gallup Social Series Environment poll, conducted March 4-7 of this year. The survey results show that the reversal in Americans' concerns about global warming that began last year has continued in 2010 - in some cases reverting to the levels recorded when Gallup began tracking global warming measures more than a decade ago.

Many global warming activists have used film and photos of melting ice caps and glaciers, and the expanding reach of deserts, to drive home their point that global warming is already having alarming effects on the earth. While these efforts may have borne fruit over much of the 2000s, during the last two years, Americans' convictions about global warming's effects have waned.

A majority of Americans still agree that global warming is real, as 53% say the effects of the problem have already begun or will do so in a few years. That percentage is dwindling, however. The average American is now less convinced than at any time since 1997 that global warming's effects have already begun or will begin shortly. Meanwhile, 35% say that the effects of global warming either will never happen (19%) or will not happen in their lifetimes (16%).

He sharply rebuked the Israeli step - which came just after the Palestinians agreed to a new round of indirect peace talks under US mediation after a 14-month lapse. 'The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now,' Mr Biden said. 'We must build an atmosphere to support negotiations, not complicate them,' he added, warning that 'unilateral action taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations.'

Israel today apologised for disrupting Mr Biden's visit with its announcement, but made clear it had no intention of reversing the order that has cast a shadow over the latest US push for peace in the Middle-East. As Mr Biden held talks with top Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose office announced the new construction on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, said the problem was about timing, not substance. 'We had no intention, no desire, to offend or taunt an important man like the vice president during his visit,' Mr Yishai told Israel Radio.

Israel's refusal to halt building on war-won land has infuriated the Palestinians and undermined their faith in the US as an effective mediator. President Barack Obama initially called for a complete settlement freeze, but did not take Israel to task when it only agreed to a ten-month moratorium on housing starts in the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu refuses to stop building in east Jerusalem, saying he will never partition the city. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War, as their future capital.

The National Congress building was evacuated shortly afterwards and a tsunami alert issued for coastal areas. A BBC correspondent in the capital, Santiago, says buildings there shook and people rushed out onto the streets after Thursday's tremor. However, there have so far been no reports of damage.

The National Emergency Office warned people in coastal areas extending from Coquimbo, 500km north of Santiago, to Los Lagos, 1,000km to the south, to seek higher ground in case of a tsunami. But the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the aftershocks were too small to cause "a destructive widespread tsunami".

The unusual e-mail sent to Senate staffers this week warning them not to visit The Drudge Report for fear of a virus has some critics crying foul, suggesting the missive is the latest attempt by Democrats to stifle dissent in the media. The Drudge Report, a popular website which aggregates news links, often trumpets headlines critical of Democratic leaders. Known for getting insider news, Drudge's scoops on the primitive-looking site commonly show up in mainstream media coverage every day.

So when the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms sent out an email warning those on Capitol Hill not to visit Drudge or whitepages.com because they "are responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate," conservatives objected. "I suspect somebody was trying to make it look as if there's a virus there to discourage people from using Drudge," Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican for Oklahoma, told CNSNews.com. He said "the liberals, the extremists" want to obscure the stories that site founder Matt Drudge is featuring. The Drudge warning was just the latest sign of what critics see as a flirtation with censorship.

Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican for Maine, and Jay Rockefeller, Democrat for West Viriginia, introduced a bill last year that would allow the President to take control of the Internet in the case of a "cybersecurity emergency." The Obama administration recently released details of a plan, drafted under the Bush administration, to secure the Internet from a range of threats.

Cisco plans to sell the new router, which will be used to direct traffic along the Internet's backbone, to Internet service providers at $90,000 per unit. The main focus of the new hardware is the exploding market for online video, which requires significantly more bandwidth than traditional data. Calling video "the killer app," Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a Webcast that the CRS-3 can distribute 1 billion online videos at any given time.

In a statement, Cisco said the new system will allow "the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second; every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously; and every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes."

"We are entering the next stage of global communication and entertainment services and applications, which requires a new set of advanced Internet networking technologies," Keith Cambron, president and CEO, of AT&T Labs, said in a statement. "Having leading edge experience in managing the largest global data network, we are pleased to continue our close working relationship with Cisco and its groundbreaking Cisco CRS-3 platform."

"The government welcomes the results of Nominet's extraordinary general meeting yesterday and the membership's decision to change the registry's constitution," said a government spokesman, who went on to say that the government had "no plans to scrap the provisions on domain names from the (Digital Economy) Bill".

The government wants the right to appoint a manager if Nominet or its agents act unfairly, misuse domain names or fail to resolve disputes in good time, thus harming the reputation or availability of public communications networks or services.

Nominet CEO Lesley Cowley said that the changes to Nominet's constitution that had been voted through meant the bill's clauses to allow the government to take over management of the ".uk" domain and related dispute resolution were unnecessary. The UK internet domain name industry should continue to self-regulate, she said. Cowley noted that the bill was still going through parliament and said that Nominet had been in touch with MPs since the first reading. "We'll wait and see what develops," she said, adding that scrapping the reserve power clauses in the bill would be "ideal".