Links:

• Opinion | A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies – The New York Times — People will always be interested in conspiracy theories. They need a tool kit for discriminating among different fringe ideas.
• How Masks Went From Don’t-Wear to Must-Have During the Coronavirus Pandemic | WIRED — Public health messaging and science have to work hard to stay in sync during a crisis. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they haven’t always succeeded.
• ʻOumuamua – Wikipedia — Oumuamua is the first known interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System.
• Harvard Astrophysicist Avi Loeb on ‘Oumuamua and Aliens — In November 2017, an object passed by our planet that was unlike anything astronomers had ever seen. Spotted by a telescope in Hawaii, this strange thing was dubbed ‘Oumuamua. It moved too fast for it to have come from our solar system, its orbit was unusual, and it didn’t have any of the traditional markings of an asteroid or comet. All this led Dr. Avi Loeb to hypothesize that ‘Oumuamua was artificially made, perhaps a piece of technology or some debris from a faraway alien civilization.
• UFO videos have been officially released by Pentagon – CNNPolitics — The Pentagon has officially released three short videos showing „unidentified aerial phenomena“ that had previously been released by a private company. The videos show what appear to be unidentified flying objects rapidly moving while recorded by infrared cameras. Two of the videos contain service members reacting in awe at how quickly the objects are moving. One voice speculates that it could be a drone.
• Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-Four – Wikipedia — The Ministry of Truth (Newspeak: Minitrue) is the ministry of propaganda. As with the other ministries in the novel, the name Ministry of Truth is a misnomer because in reality it serves the opposite: it is responsible for any necessary falsification of historical events. However, like the other ministries, the name is also apt because it decides what „truth“ is in Oceania.
• WeChat – Wikipedia — WeChat (Chinese: 微信; pinyin: Wēixìn (About this soundlisten); lit. ‘micro-message’) is a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent.
• WHO inspectors ‘to scrap interim report’ on probe of COVID origin | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera — In an open letter (PDF), a group of 26 scientists called on Thursday for a new international inquiry. They claim that “structural limitations” made it “all but impossible” for the WHO mission to adequately pursue its investigation. Among other issues, the scientists questioned the scientific independence of the “Chinese citizens” composing half of the team.
• The Americans – Wikipedia — The Americans is an American period spy thriller television series created by Joe Weisberg for the FX television network. Set during the Cold War, it follows the story of Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys), two Soviet KGB intelligence officers posing as an American married couple living in Falls Church, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., with their children, Paige (Holly Taylor) and Henry (Keidrich Sellati).