One thing the film industry get right - and they don't get much right, since romantic comedy behavior in real life is likely to get you a restraining order - is that music evokes moods.

French researchers (naturally) say they have determined that if you want to successfully ask a woman on a date, the right soundtrack could improve the odds. They found women were more prepared to give their number to an ‘average’ young man after listening to romantic background music.

Scientists from the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Collaborative Research Center 746 of the University of Freiburg say they have discovered a new mechanism which plays an essential role in the assembly and growth of mitochondria, the 'power plants' of the cell.

These organelles make energy stored in food ready for use by the cell. The generators in the cellular power plants are biological membranes located inside the mitochondria. Even minute errors in the composition of the inner mitochondrial membrane can lead to severe metabolic derangements, which can have an especially negative impact on the energy-hungry muscle and nerve cells.

When Art Meets War


If you want to make a good historical movie you should find yourself a good historian.

If one of the characters is a singer, make sure they sing in a contemporary style.

Now add in a stirring contemporary theme tune and you may well have a blockbuster.

A war movie which misses an opportunity to show the realities of war is just so much blood and guts.  The realities of war are not just the horrors of bloodshed.  There are realities of psychology, physics and philosophy: of human interactions, of weaponry and of theories of war.