By Walt Hickey

Oishii

A startup with Japanese roots raised $134 million to advance its premium strawberries. The company started in 2016 and is based out of New Jersey, but nevertheless is using its indoor farming measures to try to deliver big, juicy fruits stateside. Oishii has been hawking a pack of six strawberries for $11 in high-end grocery stores since 2022.

Momoe Ban, Nikkei Asia

COD

Activision’s Call of Duty League is in flux as the esports format contends with new challenges, investment in competitive leagues collapses, and the leagues figure out where to go next. Activision sought to make leagues resembling the NFL, where independent companies owned franchises that competed for the top prizes. Call of Duty League team owners paid a smaller share of a $27.5 million participation fee. These franchises sold for millions to investors, who years later are over the whole thing and want to bail out. In February, a team owner sued, with plaintiffs seeking $680 million in damages. What followed was an attempt at reorganizing.

Cecilia D’Anastasio, Bloomberg

Butterflies

Today, only 13 wild populations of Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies are known to exist in the United States, with just three more in Canada. Several of them, as the result of a program put forward by the state of Washington, are maintained by incarcerated women who have been tasked with shepherding the fragile larvae on to adulthood. A minimum security prison near Belfair, Washington, has entrusted a number of inmates with the butterfly project, helping a species that has seen 97 percent of its habitat lost to development.

Brian Payton, Hakai Magazine

Pollution

Gig workers in many parts of the world must contend with abhorrent conditions to carry out their work. In India, delivery workers must speed through damaging and dangerous environments, according to a new study. The 2023 air quality life index indicates that pollution in New Delhi reduces lives by an average of 11.9 years, pollution in Dhaka reduces lives by 8.1 years, and pollution in Lahore reduces lives by 7.5 years. Furthermore, delivery gig drivers spend a great deal of time in deleterious conditions.

Zuha Siddiqui, Samriddhi Sakunia and Faisal Mahmud, Rest of World

Pickleball

Last year, millions of Americans tried pickleball, putting the new sport just north of downhill skiing when it comes to participants. All told, 13.6 million people played a bit of pickleball, a bit less than the 14.1 million who played soccer and a bit more than the 13.1 million who did some downhill skiing. From 2022 to 2023, pickleball was indeed the fastest-growing sport — up 52 percent year over year — but was followed by off-course golf (up 19 percent), snowshoeing (up 17 percent) and team swimming (up 15 percent).

Lev Akabas, Sportico

Japan

Japan’s stock market is in a bit of a rally, and it’s been fueled by the country’s entertainment ecosystem. As it stands, Sanrio — the company behind Hello Kitty — is trading at 9.1 times the value of its assets, the price-to-book ratio of Capcom stands at 6.8, and Nintendo stands at 4.0, well over the 2.0 of Walt Disney, indicating a whole lot of value in those characters and IP. All told, 47 companies in Japan’s content business hit a combined market cap of $345 billion (52 trillion yen) this week, up 4 percent compared to the end of 2023, and 5.5 percent of the overall Japanese stock market.

Kentaro Tsutsumi, Nikkei Asia

Fish!!!

A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a small species of fish that grows to no more than 12 millimeters in diameter can nevertheless produce a loud noise of over 140 decibels. We already know that snapping shrimp can create a pop louder than 250 decibels by doing some weird stuff with its claws, and that terrestrial beasties can make loud noises with their assorted mating calls. But the idea that Danionella cerebrum, a tiny little fish, can make a big racket when it’s trying to hook up is new science, only possible through high-speed video and more sophisticated observation techniques. The fish has a unique apparatus that essentially plays its own cartilage like a drum, shooting it against the swim bladder with a force of 2,000 g.

Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum

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