Town & Country

Star light, star bright

STACKING stones have been used since prehistoric times, for navigation or to mark trails or boundaries. One such stack on a beach at St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly provided ‘an anchor for the Milky Way piercing through the night’s sky’ in this image by Derek Horlock. Shortlisted entries to this year’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition depict galaxies colliding, stellar nurseries, the Aurora Borealis and Saturn balanced by its moons. Run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported by Liberty Specialty Markets and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, the competition winners will be announced on September 15 and go on display two days later at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London SE10.

Thumbs up for eco-friendly farming

COMPREHENSIVE international research has confirmed that Nature-based farming can deliver high yields and reduce the need for fertilisers. In the first study of its kind, a group of leading agricultural institutes (including, for the UK, Rothamsted Research) conducted 30 long-term farm experiments across Europe and Africa to examine