Also, many GMOs were engineered to be more resistant to pests and thus need fewer pesticides

Colorado?

Most mathematicians, engineers, and scientists don’t use the asterisk symbol for multiplication. Most don’t write any symbol as it’s implicit. If they do use a symbol they would use a dot or x symbol (though never an actual x). In mathematics, the asterisk is mostly only used to represent convolutions.

Most common:

abc

Less common:

a • b • c

a × b × c

Never:

a * b * c

While to most people this doesn’t really matter (and should feel free using * for multiplication). It shows someone with minimal formal experience in mathematics using this formula