PhysOrg Tech posts

Offshore platform tests bird-friendly lighting - Dutch Petrol company NAM is testing new lighting by electronics giant Philips to improve safety for migratory birds who can get disoriented by brightly-lit offshore platforms. Almost all the floodlights, some 380 lamps, have been replaced with the green coloured lights during the trial period. According to Philips birds are particularly attracted by red tones in the light and much less by blue or green tones.

Crushed Glass to Be Spread on Beaches - Faced with the constant challenge of keeping sand on Florida's beaches, Broward County officials are exploring an innovative option to use pulverized glass to control erosion.

Potato chip flavoring protects concrete - Awni Al-Otoom of the Jordan University of Science and Technology found sodium acetate -- the ingredient that helps give salt and vinegar-flavored potato chips a tangy snap -- is the key to a new waterproof coating for concrete.

Indians predated Newton 'discovery' by 250 years - Dr George Gheverghese Joseph from The University of Manchester says the 'Kerala School' identified the 'infinite series'- one of the basic components of calculus - in about 1350.The discovery is currently - and wrongly - attributed in books to Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz at the end of the seventeenth centuries.

First genome transplant changes one species into another - For the first time, scientists have completely transformed a species of bacteria into another species by transplanting its complete set of DNA. The achievement marks a significant step toward the construction of synthetic life, with applications including the production of clean fuel in as little as a decade.

Girls prefer pink, or at least a redder shade of blue - A study in the August 21st issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press, reports some of the first conclusive evidence in support of the long-held notion that men and women differ when it comes to their favorite colors. Indeed, the researchers found that women really do prefer pink - or at least a redder shade of blue -than men do.

Battling bitter coffee -- chemists vs. main source of coffee bitterness - Bitter taste can ruin a cup of coffee. Now, chemists in Germany and the United States say they have identified the chemicals that appear to be largely responsible for java's bitterness, a finding that could one day lead to a better tasting brew. Using advanced chromatography techniques and a human sensory panel trained to detect coffee bitterness, Hofmann and his associates found that coffee bitterness is due to two main classes of compounds: chlorogenic acid lactones and phenylindanes, both of which are antioxidants found in roasted coffee beans.

Are civil unions a 600-year-old tradition? - A compelling new study from the September issue of the Journal of Modern History reviews historical evidence, including documents and gravesites, suggesting that homosexual civil unions may have existed six centuries ago in France.

One Species' Genome Discovered Inside Another's - Scientists at the University of Rochester and the J. Craig Venter Institute have discovered a copy of the genome of a bacterial parasite residing inside the genome of its host species. The research, reported in today's Science, also shows that lateral gene transfer - the movement of genes between unrelated species - may happen much more frequently between bacteria and multicellular organisms than scientists previously believed, posing dramatic implications for evolution.

Battle of the Sexes: Study Reveals Married Men Lag Behind in Household Chores - Based on data from more than 17,000 respondents in 28 countries, researchers found that live-in boyfriends perform more housework than married men because cohabiting couples tend to split housework more evenly than married couples. After marriage, however, women take on a larger portion of household chores. Most studies of housework suggest that on average married women do about twice as much housework as their husbands even after controlling for employment status and other factors.

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