The strawberry field in that video gets about 300 pounds of pesticides applied to every single acre each year. Corn, considered a pesticide-heavy crop, gets about 5 pounds. Strawberries get 60 times more. Strawberry pathogens and pests have been developing resistance to chemical pesticides for decades. The Insecticide Resistance Action Committee has documented over 500 pest species that have evolved resistance to at least one pesticide. US farmers lost 7 percent of their crops to pests in the 1940s. By the 1980s and 1990s, that number had climbed to 13 percent, even though they were spraying more chemicals than ever. When pests adapt to a chemical, farmers buy a new one. Call it the resistance treadmill. The global pesticide market runs over $80 billion a year. Bayer's crop science division alone generated €7.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026. A flywheel that large does not want to stop spinning. UV-C, the short-wave form of ultraviolet light that kills microorganisms, breaks this flywheel at the biology level. UV-C damages pathogen DNA by binding key parts of the genetic code together until the instructions become unreadable. Pathogens evolved a repair enzyme, called photolyase, that undoes this damage. It requires blue light to work. At night, there is no blue light. The damage stays permanent. The pathogen dies on a lower UV dose than would work during the day, and the strawberry plant is unharmed. The kill mechanism is physical. Pathogens cannot evolve resistance to UV light the way they evolve resistance to molecules. Pests can't mutate their way around light. USDA data shows organic strawberries sell for 40 to 50 percent more at the farm gate than conventional. In peak winter months, that premium has reached 88 percent. A UC Giannini Foundation study from May 2026 found conventional strawberry farming in California was no longer profitable in 2024, while organic was. TRIC charges farmers nothing upfront. Pilot programs across California's Central Coast showed up to 70 percent less pesticide use. Farmers running TRIC robots can go organic and keep that premium. TRIC has raised $5.5 million total and employs 16 people. In the first three months of 2026, Bayer's crop science division generated €7.5 billion, more than a thousand times that amount. In the same quarter, its sales of chemicals targeting crop diseases fell 10.7 percent.

How far is FIFA going with its brand restrictions? The condiments at the Levi’s Stadium press box have all been taped over 😆

autonomous robot driving through the field at night. no chemicals. no pesticides. just UV light killing pathogens and pests while everyone sleeps. this is @tricrobotics. this is what chemical-free pest control looks like at scale.

Clear (plastic) cans keep gaining steam. Svedka’s the newest entrant.

Scoop! Roku, the $20 billion streaming platform, is in talks for a potential sale, sources tell us. $ROKU Story with @rngould @DNair5 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Japan’s H3 rocket will return to flight Friday, with a launch that also marks the debut of a new configuration, optimized for smaller payloads. By William Graham (@w_d_graham) nasaspaceflight.com/2026/06/…

In less than 24 hours I have visited 2 companies currently flying and building satellites, another company getting ready to turn on a nuclear reactor, and am sitting in an FBO run by an eVTOL company. Only in LA.

What was the winner?

This CAA deal is just another proof point that the future belongs to creators