That's the word from a survey conducted by three global marketing firms that determined blue is overwhelmingly the favorite color of people in each of 17 different countries, reports Wireless Flash.

• 42 percent of Americans are fans of blue, as are 47 percent of Germans and 44 percent of Brazilians.
• Overall, 40 percent of people worldwide picked blue as their favorite color.
• The second most favorite color is purple, which was chosen by only 14 percent worldwide.

And what is our least favorite color? That would be white, which ranked at the bottom of people's preferences in every country in the survey except Mexico, Brazil, and China.

• If you're in the market for a new car, choose one that is silver. Why? Silver cars are involved in far fewer crashes than cars of other colors, reports Reuters. According to a study by researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand that assessed the effect of car colors on the risk of serious injury in over 1,000 Auckland drivers between 1998-99, silver cars were 50 percent less likely to be involved in a crash resulting in a serious injury when compared with white cars.



• The least safe car colors are brown, black, and green. The risk factor for white, yellow, gray, red, and blue cars is in the middle range and about the same for each.



• Women see one color differently than do men: red. She sees crimson, burgundy, and tomato. He sees red. Just plain ol' red. Why? It turns out there's a perfectly good reason why men can't see what is so obvious to women: the many variations--some subtle, some bold--of the color red. Reuters reports that researchers from Arizona State University in Tempe have determined there is a gene that allows us to see the color red, and that gene comes in a high number of variations. Because the gene sits on the X chromosome--and women have two X chromosomes and so two copies of this gene, compared with only one for men--the gene aids women's ability to perceive the red-orange color spectrum. The study findings were reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics.