In a 1960s vintage Star Trek, Captain Kirk and crew boldly go to a planet that is suffocatingly overcrowded. It is a nightmare vision, only tolerable as fiction. But back on Earth, two scientists predicted a global population of 10 billion by the middle of this century, with an apocalyptic forecast of pollution, famine and political collapse. Our Inside Story takes a look at the statistics and sets out what we can do to survive (page 12).
Meanwhile, what can we do with under-achieving boys? English teacher Karen Lockney has some answers (page 6), as in his own way does the controversial writer Melvin Burgess (page 26).