Valentine hearts may be everywhere, and available in every shape and form, but the season of the heart' means different things to different people. A healthy heart is worth its weight in gold but with reports saying a glass of wine a day or was that a beer a day - was healthy, one can easily be confused. The web offers some clarification.

At the Science Learning Network site, http://sln.fi.edu/biosci/heart.html you can learn a great deal about this precious organ. With an average 2.5 billion beats per lifetime, one can't help but be curious about this wonder. It's a great site for exploring.

At BMJ's site http://heart.bmjjournals.com/ you can subscribe to heart information by e-mail alerts and to hand-held technology. It is definitely trying to stay one beat ahead of the rest.

"The fact that we have one of the highest death rates from coronary heart disease in the western world is shocking, and a reality we cannot ignore, " says Professor Sir Charles George on http://www.bhf.org.uk Its 2003 stats report is interesting and get-off-the-couch motivating.

It's no surprise that there is a day dedicated to this precious organ. The next world heart day is September 28, 2003. At http://www.worldheartday.com you can find out why this year's focus is on women and heart disease. It gives you online charts to figure out your BMI (Body Mass Index read, fat) status, so in the privacy of your home you can tell if you are at risk of heart problems and, if so, how great the risk is. It is a useful target day for losing weight.

If you put heart into surfing, the search engines will pump up a lot of sites for you.

You might wish you'd visited the now defunct http://www.burningheart.com where you can find Swedish independent recording label music or http://www.ladies-of-the-heart.com - a multicultural site with a garden theme.

When you are talking heart, you have to talk football. And if you visit http://www.heartsfc.co.uk - a Scottish football club site - you'll go right to the heart of what's dear to many.

Thisis site of the week:

If it's good for the soul it must be good for the heart! Music that isvisit the new music site at http://www.musiclinks.org.uk Based at the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, and with sponsors like the Westmorland Music Society, South Lakeland, Eden and Cumbria councils, it has a lot of strong backing. The site is focussed on linking youth to music opportunities around the North West. It offers links to workshops, training for educators and a forum for linking the like-minded. And if you have a music related site you can ask them to put a link to your site.

February 13, 2003 11:00