Methyl bromide and bonobos

Completely unrelated to each other, but two interesting links via recent posts in Focking Science:

1. An update on the usual Bush Admin. effort to screw up the environment, this time by further delaying the phaseout of ozone-destroying methyl bromide, which was supposed to have been eliminated by now. We Californians are the heart of the problem in pushing for a delay in the phaseout, and my recollection is that Dems are little better than the Republicans on this. Left out of the article was how bad this stuff is for farmworkers. They use it 30 miles from here, on strawberries grown on coastal farms, and the migrant workers suffer for their wages. Best argument around for eating organic strawberries, at least in the US.

2. A Smithsonian article on bonobos, saying the "make love not war" image they have isn't completely true. I never believed it, anyway - in Africa before humans became the dominant force, the bonobo population presumably expanded until it used all the food resources, and then they had the problem of determining who gets the food and who starves. I don't think playing kissyface was the method that rival bonobo groups used to solve that problem.