Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,09 May 2015,30 mins

Turning Back the Ageing Process

From Our Own Correspondent

Available for over a year

Now where have I put the car keys? A Japanese neuro-scientist believes a regular brain 'workout' can improve the lives, and the memories, of older people who might otherwise fall victim to dementia; Italy's planning to tell the UN Security Council next week that the country's in urgent need of more help in dealing with the tide of migrants washing up on its shores - we're in a port in Sicily where boatloads of them now arrive almost every day; the authorities in Saudi Arabia show our correspondent round a high security jail near Riyadh where, they say, they are succeeding in reforming extremists from IS and al-Qaeda; farmer suicides in India - many possible reasons are cited for their decisions to kill themselves but but it's clear that distress among the agricultural community is part of a wider malaise afflicting the countryside. And on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba we find out why boa constrictors, snakes which can grow to four metres in length, have taken to travelling by car.

Programme Website
More episodes