The Exchange

Watching the latest episode of House last night, we were struck by the impressive use of medical terminology throughout. It reminded us of just how hard writers and their staff on such shows work to bring plausibility to their fictional world. Sure, people love to joke about the constant parade of obscure, rare diseases encountered by House and his cohorts, and how the disease of the week never seems to be lupus, but the writers have certainly done their homework.

Fans of science and film who'll be in New York City over the next couple of weeks should check out the second annual Imagine Science Film Festival, from October 15 through October 23. The festival will screen some 50 films from nine different countries at such venues as Tribeca Cinemas, New York all of Science, CUNY Graduate Center and The New School.

The over-arching message is "science is for everyone," according to festival founder Alexis Gambis, who has a PhD in genetics and molecular biology from Rockefeller University, and has just enrolled as a film student at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. "There is a definite need to create a dialogue between scientists and the public," he says. "The [festival] provides a creative platform for scientists to share their inspiration with the public in relatable and engaging ways."

What would the world be like if nobody could lie -- not even a harmless little white lie? It would probably be like the world envisioned by British comic actor Ricky Gervais in The Invention of Lying, where brutal honesty is the order of the day, until Gervais' hapless character suddenly develops the ability to lie, or in his words, "I said something... thatwasn't!" We are treated to an image of neurons in his brain firing in new ways at that pivotal evolutionary moment.

With Julie and Julia being a surprise hit this summer, Julia Child has once again rocketed to the forefront of the national consciousness. Child is the iconic figure of popularizing haute cuisine, blazing a trail on television long before anyone dreamed up The Food Network or Top Chef, and publishing her bestselling classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961. Her entire kitchen is now on permanent display in Washington, DC, at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.