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Photo, above: "The timing of some major extinction events on Earth coincides with the solar system's journey through Milky Way's spiral arms, suggests a new study.

The research, published on the pre-press website ArXiv.org, supports the idea that mass extinction events were not always random. The Sun spends 50 to 60 per cent of its 220-million-year journey around the galaxy passing through its spiral arms, says study co-author Dr Jonti Horner of the University of New South Wales.

"These are regions of higher than average density, where there are more stars and molecular gas and dust clouds," says Horner.  "It could be argued that the increase in the number of stars encountered as the Sun moves through a galactic arm, can trigger gravitational perturbations, sending comets from the Oort cloud towards the inner solar system, where the Earth is."  See Hour 2, Blocks C & D, Jonti Horner, Astrophysics & Optics Dept, University of New South Wales, Australia.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America... by James Green

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Sid Perkins, Science magazine in re: CFCs

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Jeff Himmelman, NYT, in re: A Game of Shark and Minnow In a remote corner of the South China Sea, 105 nautical miles from the Philippines, lies a submerged reef the Filipinos call Ayungin.  . . . [geopolitics of fending off Chinese invasion:] On the deck of the Sierra Madre, with morning sun slanting off the bright blue water and the crowing of a rooster for a soundtrack, Staff Sgt. Joey Loresto and Sgt. Roy Yanto were improvising. Yanto, a soft-spoken 31-year-old, had lost an arrow spearfishing on the shoal the day before. Now he had pulled the handle off an old bucket and was banging it straight with a rusty mallet in an attempt to make it into a spear. Everything on the Sierra Madre was this way — improvised, repurposed. “Others came prepared,” Loresto said of previous detachments that had been briefed about life on the boat before they arrived and knew they would need to fish to supplement their diet. “But we were not prepared.” . . .  (1 of 2)

 Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Jeff Himmelman, NYT, in re: A Game of Shark and Minnow In a remote corner of the South China Sea, 105 nautical miles from the Philippines, lies a submerged reef the Filipinos call Ayungin. (2 of 2)

Hour Two

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: The Lightning Keeper: A Novel by Starling Lawrence.  "This is the story of an unlikely love at the dawn of the electric age in America. In 1914, Toma Pekocevic is a penniless immigrant in New York recently escaped from the bloody politics of the Balkans that has claimed most of his family. He is also a gifted inventor who designs a revolutionary water turbine while working with Harriet Bigelow, scion of a proud Connecticut iron-making dynasty now fallen on hard times. Their attraction is immediate and overwhelming, but every circumstance is against them. Toma's invention is all he has after losing Harriet to a wealthy politician, but he is determined to win her back, setting the stage for a confrontation that could change not only his life but the course of scientific progress."

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Sid Perkins, Science magazine, in re: Early warning system for asteroids hitting Earth

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Jonti Horner, Astrophysics & Optics Dept, University of New South Wales, Australia, in re: Milky Way revolution (1 of 2)

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Jonti Horner, Astrophysics & Optics Dept, University of New South Wales, Australia, in re: Milky Way revolution (2 of 2)

Hour Three

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: America's Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution, 1919-1923 by Robert Shenk ( of 4)

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: America's Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution, 1919-1923 by Robert Shenk ( of 4)

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: America's Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution, 1919-1923 by Robert Shenk ( of 4)

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: America's Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution, 1919-1923 by Robert Shenk ( of 4)

Hour Four

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: The True Story of Catch 22: The Real Men and Missions of Joseph Heller's 340th Bomb Group in World War II by Patricia Chapman Meder (1 of 2)

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: The True Story of Catch 22: The Real Men and Missions of Joseph Heller's 340th Bomb Group in World War II by Patricia Chapman Meder (2 of 2)

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America... by James Green

Sunday 12 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Sid Perkins, Science magazine in re: CFCs