Viral Mars video not taken by Perseverance
NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars on Feb. 18, following a 133 million-mile journey that began last July, and immediately sent a few low-resolution photos back to Earth.
A few day later, a video appeared online purporting to show a panoramic view of the red planet, along with the sound of Martian wind. This video made the rounds on social media and was viewed tens of millions of times on Twitter.
It does show the surface of Mars, but the video wasn't made by Perseverance, according to Forbes magazine. It's a manipulated clip, put together using years-old images from the Curiosity rover, which NASA landed on the planet in 2012. The sound of wind is fake. Curiosity, unlike Perseverance, didn't have the capability to record sound.
NASA has since released short footage of Perseverance landing and a bit of sound. There will be more video and sound, but officials said the longer, high-resolution clips are still being transmitted back to Earth.
The Perseverance mission is to "seek signs of ancient life," while gathering rocks and soil samples that can be brought back to Earth by a future expedition, NASA said.
Cruz didn't write viral Texas freezing tweet
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas faced some scrutiny following a flight to, and quick return from, Cancún, Mexico, while millions of state residents were dealing with power losses, cold temperatures and lack of clean water following severe winter storms.
Shortly after he landed back in Texas, this tweet, supposedly written by Cruz in 2016, appeared on social media: "I'll believe in climate change when Texas freezes over."
The message, which was widely shared on the internet, had some believing the senator had reversed his stance.
"And the Green New Deal just got another supporter," said one post that was retweeted 3,000 times.
But the Twitter post from Cruz is fake, according to The Associated Press. There is no record of it appearing on his official Twitter account and it can't be found on the digital archive site Wayback Machine or any other online sites that track deleted tweets from politicians.
After returning from the trip, Cruz said his decision to leave was a mistake and he began second-guessing the vacation as soon as he sat down on the plane, the AP said.
Increase in oil prices exaggerated
The price of oil has been on the rise recently, but the increase hasn't been as steep as some social media posts have claimed
Recent widely shared Facebook posts have said the cost of oil has more than doubled since President Joe Biden took office.
"Oil is now $61.30 a barrel & rising drastically! On Jan 5th, it was about $25.00 a barrel Are you awake yet? Gas & milk going up too," one user wrote in a post flagged as misinformation by Facebook.
The daily price of a barrel of oil is currently about $61, but that figure hasn't been as low as $25 since May, when the cost dropped due to worldwide shutdowns, according to PolitiFact.com, citing U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics.
Since last May, an upward trend in the cost of West Texas Intermediate crude oil, which is the U.S. benchmark, saw the price for a barrel on Jan. 5 at $49.78 and on Feb. 19 it was $59.12, an increase of nearly 19% in that time period.
The increase is mostly attributed to the feeling that an economic recovery is coming sooner than expected, PolitiFact said.
Cats purr to express emotions
A recent social media post claims cats purr just before they attack.
"When you hear a cat purr, it may sound like the cat is happy. That's impossible since the only emotion a cat feels is contempt," Barry Catfish Farmer wrote in a Feb. 18 Facebook post. It went on to say when you pet a cat, its heartbeat speeds up and you hear it purr because the cat senses "you're close enough to be attacked."
The information, posted to the Facebook group page Pet Jokes & Puns, is false, according to USA Today. That offering received more than 1,100 likes and comments and has been shared more than 300 times, some presenting it as fact.
The meme and other similar versions have actually been circulating on the internet for eight years.
Cats purr for many reasons, including contentment, hunger, discomfort, motherly bonding and self-soothing, USA Today said.
The idea that cats only feel contempt is false, animal behaviorist Vicky Halls said on the website Petplan.
"We know that cats make positive associations with their owner through pleasant experiences," she said.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.