… The Future of Fast-Food Tech, Bad Days Banned and MORE.

When people are working 40+ hours a week, office romance is going to happen. According to Manhattan-based career site Vault.com’s annual Office Romance Survey — yep, Valentine’s Day is less than a week away — 48 percent of 945 employees surveyed say they’ve known of a married colleague who cheated on his or her spouse with someone at work. And 40 percent say they know of a married or otherwise seriously committed co-worker who got a little frisky with someone on a business trip.

In total, 82 percent of respondents have known of an office romance between co-workers.

Almost half of all survey respondents (46 percent) admitted to having had an office romance, and true love ruled for 20 percent, who met their spouses or long-term significant others on the job. As for co-workers, 50 percent said they knew of colleagues who went on to get married after meeting and starting a relationship at work.

Moreover, 19 percent of organizations have a policy to deal with it. Rules range from having to notify the human resources department, sign a consensual relationship form or switch departments if a romance is occurring, to banning relationships between co-workers altogether.

Is it Chemistry or Chemical?
Kissing may have evolved from primate mothers’ practice of chewing food for their young and then feeding them mouth-to-mouth, according to the latest issue of Scientific American:

In the 1960s British zoologist and author Desmond Morris first proposed that kissing might have evolved from the practice in which primate mothers chewed food for their young and then fed them mouth-to-mouth, lips puckered. Chimpanzees feed in this manner, so our hominid ancestors probably did, too. Pressing outturned lips against lips may have then later developed as a way to comfort hungry children when food was scarce and, in time, to express love and affection in general. The human species might eventually have taken these proto-parental kisses down other roads until we came up with the more passionate varieties we have today.

Some scientists theorize that kissing is crucial to the evolutionary process of mate selection. Also, something about lust, chemistry, chemicals and cannibalism… .

Bad Days Banned
A ban on grumpiness, gossiping, mini-skirts and rudeness is what the doctor orders to improve patient care in Serbia’s hospitals, according to new rules issued by the country’s Health Ministry.

Further, Reuters reports that the rules, posted on the ministry’s Web site, say staff are not allowed to criticize their hospital or their supervisors.

“There needs to be ground rules for decency,” a ministry spokesperson said.

Paper Planes in Space
Japanese scientists plan to launch paper planes — chemically treated to resist heat and water — from the International Space Station to see if they make it back to Earth.

Reuters again reports:

On Wednesday the University of Tokyo researchers tested small, origami planes made of special paper for 30 seconds in 250 degrees Celsius heat and wind at seven times the speed of sound. The planes survived the wind tunnel test intact.

The theory is that paper craft, being much lighter than space shuttles, may escape the worst of the friction and heat that much heavier space shuttles face on re-entry to the atmosphere. It will take several months for the craft to reach Earth and there is no way to predict their landing spot if they make it.

Help Rename a Future Telescope Mission
U.S space agency NASA yesterday announced that members of the international general public will have a chance to suggest a new name for the cutting-edge Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, a.k.a. GLAST, observatory before it launches in mid-2008.

These are the mission’s scientific objectives:

• Explore the most extreme environments in the universe, where nature harnesses energies far beyond anything possible on Earth;
• Search for signs of new laws of physics and what composes the mysterious dark matter;
• Explain how black holes accelerate immense jets of material to nearly light speed;
• Help crack the mysteries of the stupendously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts; and
• Answer long-standing questions about a broad range of phenomena, including solar flares, pulsars and the origin of cosmic rays.

“We’re looking for name suggestions that will capture the excitement of GLAST’s mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy,” Alan Stern, associate administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement (via SpaceRef.com).

“We are looking for something memorable to commemorate this spectacular new astronomy mission,” he continued. “We hope someone will come up with a name that is catchy, easy to say and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion.”

Soggy Food or Lumpy Drink?
Dubbed “convenient,” “genius,” “the future of fast-food technology,” “the greatest food invention yet” and “more disposable plastic crap housing poisonous ‘food’ to fill up our landfills and clog our arteries,” The Col-Pop is the brainchild of BBQ Chicken, a South Korea–based fried chicken chain.

Simply put, it is a cup that holds your chicken nuggets AND your soda — nuggets on top, soda on bottom — at the same time. (Source: Serious Eats via Gizmodo and digg)

Col-Pop: The Future of Fast-Food Technology from Adam Kuban on Vimeo.

Cheers.