There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.
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The Science Museum's Prove it! exhibition asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they've seen the evidence and want governments to take action. As of yesterday afternoon, 1,006 people had endorsed it and 6,110 had rejected it. On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the global warming category. Never mind that they've been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?

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The report, Building Character, studied data from 9,000 households in Britain to find out what sort of upbringing produced character traits, such as application, self-regulation and empathy, which gave the best guarantee of future success.

When a whole range of factors including household income, family structure, parental education and breast-feeding for at least six months were taken into account, discipline emerged as the key indicator of likely future prosperity.

Children with parents who practised "tough love" were twice as likely to develop good character traits by the age of five as those with "disengaged" parents – and were also likely to do significantly better than those with "laissez faire" or "authoritarian" parental regimes.

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Teacher union leaders are warning schools to vet the charities they support after complaints from parents about a scheme to send gifts to the developing world run by an evangelical Christian group.

Under Operation Christmas Child, schoolchildren are asked to fill a shoebox full of presents and wrap it up before the charity Samaritan's Purse distributes the boxes to children in Africa and eastern Europe. Last year 1.2m boxes were sent by children in the UK and the charity received £23.5m in voluntary donations.

A booklet of Bible stories is sent with the boxes to some countries, including a pledge that children are asked to sign to "become God's child today", attend church, read the Bible and convince friends to do the same.

Samaritan's Purse is part of an American evangelical organisation run by the Rev Franklin Graham, who has called Islam "a very wicked and evil religion".

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All this feeds into one striking statistic. After next year's election about a third of all new MPs will have been to fee-paying schools, compared with 13% of new arrivals when the Commons last underwent major change in 1997.

Most of this data is to be found in The Class of 2010, a report put together by the lobbying firm the Madano Partnership, based on work by academics from Plymouth University. The research suggests that relative to 1997, the number of new MPs from comprehensive schools will fall from 46% to about 30%; and that 17% of the new intake will come from grammar schools, despite only 5% of pupils attending such schools.
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They conclude: "There has been a marked increase in the number of winnable [seat] candidates who were educated at private or independent school, perhaps by as much as three times the 1997 figure."

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I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place. Knowledge is not the same as morality, but we need to understand if we are to avoid past mistakes and move in productive directions. An important part of that understanding is knowing who we are and what we can do… Ultimately, we must synthesize our understandings for ourselves. The performance of understanding that try matters are the ones we carry out as human beings in an imperfect world which we can affect for good or for ill.

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An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

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On the morning of the exam, the exam room the floor is covered in cables. IT experts are busy helping the teenagers set up their laptops, making sure they all work.

At five to nine, the room falls silent. CD-roms and exam papers are handed out together. This is the Danish language exam.

One of the teachers stands in front of the class and explains the rules. She tells the candidates they can use the internet to answer any of the four questions.

They can access any site they like, even Facebook, but they cannot message each other or email anyone outside the classroom.

At nine o'clock the exam begins

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DirectgovKids helps children and their teachers and parents, find out more about their world; through games, vidoes and animations.

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