Apple's no stranger to being slammed by Greenpeace, and while Steve certainly spoke of a "Greener Apple," it seems that the iPhone wasn't included. According to tests arranged by the entity, it was found that the iPhone contained "toxic brominated compounds (indicating the presence of brominated flame retardants) and hazardous PVC," which are said to be disallowed across the pond due to RoHS requirements. More specifically, the independent testing found "brominated compounds in half the samples, including in the phone's antenna, in which they made up 10-percent of the total weight of the flexible circuit board." As expected, Greenpeace wasted no time pointing to rival firms that have received pats on the back for their green efforts, and subsequently shook a finger at Apple while murmuring "tsk tsk" -- but we'll leave the actual politicking to you all in comments, cool?

Update: Our bad, Greenpeace does not claim that Apple is in violation of RoHS requirements.

[Via Switched, thanks Laura]

Developing robots with flea-like attributes seems to be quite popular these days, as researchers at the University of Lucca have apparently created a diminutive bot that was "developed to detect mercury poisoning in the ground and leap from place to place the way fleas or frogs jump." The creature measures in at ten-centimeters long and weighs just 80-grams, and can supposedly cover "vast amounts of land in shorter amounts of time" compared to less efficient pollution-seeking alternatives. Currently, the critters are purportedly being loosed in the wild with "special mercury-deteting sensors," so be sure not to squash any hard workin' mechanical pests if one accidentally hops in your tent.

[Via The Raw Feed]

In case we haven't told you this in one of our How-tos already: don't attempt to eat your PC. You'll probably break a few teeth trying it, and a lot of the parts that make up your chunky tower or your sandwich lookalike of a laptop are toxic anyway. PC Magazine outlines some of the common toxic chemicals that make up your PC, and it doesn't make for pleasant reading. For example, did you know that your motherboard's Beryllium base could give you cancer, and your LCD's mercury infused fluorescent bulb, brain damage? OK, so you're not really in any kind of risk unless you go against our wise eating advice earlier, but it certainly makes you think -- specifically, that the innocent box sitting under your desk is trying to kill you. C'mon, these thing are already starting to "randomly" explode; how long until our LCD activates its tilt mechanism and starts dripping mercury into our mouth while we're sleeping, or our laptop sneaks in between two slices of bread? Personally, we're going back to pen, paper, and non-robotic carrier pigeon.

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