PICK OF TODAY’S RADIO

CROWDSCIENCE: WHAT MAKES THINGS BURN?, 8.30PM, BBC WORLD SERVICE

FIRES have raged through Europe during the long hot summer, devastating lives, ruining crops and disfiguring the landscape. Too many people have had to watch their homes go up in flames, leaving them to sift through the ashes for the remains of their lives. In this week’s edition of the programme that answers listeners’ science queries, Alex Lathbridge hears why substances react to extreme heat in different ways, learns what actually happens inside a material when it’s burning, and finds out how scientists are working on new, fire resistant materials.

A STRANGE new condition emerges in the world population. Extended Life Syndrome halts the ageing process to such an extent that a very small percentage of adults will have much longer lives, in the best of health. In the unsettling drama ONE FIVE SEVEN YEARS (2.15PM, RADIO 4), Anya (Rose Wardlaw, pictured), who works in a diagnostics laboratory, begins to realise that the syndrome, which seems like a blessing, could actually be a terrible curse.