Ironwood, set in the middle of the California desert, is a series of extremes. Over-crowded, understaffed and subject to brutally hot summers, tensions at this prison seem to rise with the thermometer. But there is a group of inmates among the 4,800 incarcerated at Ironwood dedicated to self-improvement. Those taking part face stiff opposition from their gangs to attend classes.

Two teenage prom queens are promised a luxury holiday in Peru. Instead, they find themselves facing six years in one of the world's worst prisons. Jennifer Davis, a prom queen from a strict religious family in Illinois, is just 19 when she moves to California, dreaming of a modelling career. She meets 18 year old Krista Barnes on her first day there, and they instantly became best friends. They look forward to a fun-packed year living together in their Californian beach house, away from the overbearing presence of their strict dads for the first time (one was a prison warden, the other a police officer). They've only been roommates for three weeks when their landlord introduces them to a couple of good looking Peruvian lads who make them a life-changing proposition: an exotic, all-expense paid holiday to Peru in exchange for bringing back a bit of cocaine. The Peruvians assure the squeaky clean girls - who didn't have so much as a parking ticket between them - there is no chance of getting caught, and that they'd each receive US$5,000 on their return. The girls think about it for a while, before agreeing. Setting out with guide books and sun-block, they couldn't imagine the nightmare ahead of them.

In some societies around the world, snacking on cockroaches, dining on worms and swallowing the still-beating heart of a snake are traditions and even considered delicacies. Travel across borders to explore extreme food customs that are acceptable in some cultures, but forbidden or reviled in others. In Hanoi, Vietnam, deadly serpents are a specialty item prized for their curative properties and are sliced live at the table. In rural Vietnam, it's traditional to eat insects, such as a six-course meal of bee larvae, locusts, fried scorpions, silkworms, crickets and stinkbugs. In Japan, diners pay several hundred dollars and risk death to savour the delicate but lethal blowfish called "fugu," responsible for an estimated 50 deaths a year. Once a year, members of an elite club in Manhattan feast on haute cuisine, including bear claws, tarantula, pork testicles cooked in blood and, for dessert - succulent strawberries dipped in rich chocolate and live maggots.

In 1982, the engines on a British Airways flight to Australia catch fire then stop working. Plunging down, the engines miraculously start up again. Why was this plane knocked from the sky?