The mlabwrapper enables you to call Matlab functions from Python. Since compiling the wrapper is not a straightforward task, readily installable executables are provided for the matlab versions 2010a & 2010b. You have to install the wrapper in your python directory and, consequently, import the wrapper into python by calling "from mlabwrap import mlab". Every matlab function can then be called by mlab.matlabfunction (for example mlab.magic(10)). If you would like to compile the wrapper yourself (for example for another matlab version) some useful suggestions can be found here.