This paper is concerned with singular projective rationally connected threefolds $X$ which carry non-zero pluri-forms, that is the reflexive hull of $({\rm\Omega}_{X}^{1})^{\otimes m}$ has a non-zero global section for some positive integer $m$. If $X$ has $\mathbb{Q}$-factorial terminal singularities, then we show that there is a fibration $p$ from $X$ to $\mathbb{P}^{1}$. Moreover, we give a formula for the numbers of $m$-pluri-forms as a function of the ramification of the fibration $p$.

We discuss a possible approach to the study of the vanishing of the Kobayashi pseudo-metric of a projective variety X, using chains of rational or elliptic curves contained in an arbitrarily small neighbourhood of X in projective space for the Euclidean topology.

We prove that the space of smooth rational curves of degree $e$ on a general complete intersection of multidegree $(d_1, \ldots , d_m)$ in $\mathbb {P}^n$ is irreducible of the expected dimension if $\sum _{i=1}^m d_i \lt (2n+m+1)/3$ and $n$ is sufficiently large. This generalizes a result of Harris, Roth and Starr [Rational curves on hypersurfaces of low degree, J. Reine Angew. Math. 571 (2004), 73–106], and is achieved by proving that the space of conics passing through any point of a general complete intersection has constant dimension if $\sum _{i=1}^m d_i$ is small compared to $n$.