Robert Farrar sent in links to two stories from Astronomy Now – see http://astronomynow.com/2016/01/30/phase-of-the-moon-affects-amount-of-r… … and http://astronomynow.com/2016/01/30/understanding-the-magnetic-sun/ …
1) phases of the moon affect the amount of rainfally. When the moon is high in the sky it creates bulges in the atmosphere. As we live in a water world this means rainfall increases, but just an insignificant amount after reading a few lines – but what would happen if the moon was closer to the earth?
2) Understanding the magnetic sun – or rather, trying to understand how the sun inter-acts with the earth. The surface of the sun writhes and coils with bursting loops of plasma that spiral upwards before falling back down again. Observations by modern telescopes are pulling out new information all the time but computer simulation is being used as a tool to understand the sun data. The report says, 'we know that the sun is a giant magnetic star made of material that moves in concert with the lines of electro-magnetism' and 'we're not sure exactly where in the sun the magnetic field is created'. It could be close to the surface – or occur at a wide range of depths. Once again modelling is an important part of the research.
See also http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/01/new-insights-into-the-solar-magnet… .. which has a book full of comments.
See also http://phys.org/print373316344.html … and http://phys.org/print373316460.html