We are all afloat—and some of us are drowning—in a sea of misinformation. In our cover article, Melanie Trecek-King throws us a life preserver. A community college biology professor, Trecek-King follows up on her previous SI article, “Teach Skills, Not Facts” (January/February 2022), with a guide to evaluating claims and keeping us afloat. It is short, clear, and readable. This is the type of article on scientific skepticism that takes a step back from examining specific claims to focus on key essentials useful in examining all claims. (Her article in turn is her update of a valuable 1990 Skeptical Inquirer article, whose author, James Lett, she generously credits.) She devises a new acronym, FLOATER, to help us remember seven key tools in a toolkit to protect ourselves (and her students) from drowning in a sea of bad claims: Falsifiability, Logic, Objectivity, Alternative explanations, Tentative conclusions, Evidence, and Replicability. She discusses subcomponents of each and clearly explains why each is powerful and effective if deployed properly.

Our authors have been examining extraordinary claims and writing about critical thinking for a long time. Many articles have discussed or employed some of the guidelines that Trecek-King talks about. But I find it valuable to have all of them put together in one handy, well-organized, up-to-date package. I hope you do too.

I realize our philosopher friends find fault with at least two things she talks about: falsifiability (which they find imperfect and old-fashioned) and pointing out common logical fallacies (such as “appeal to emotions”; she lists thirteen). Yes, these aren’t decisive delineators; nevertheless, I think they are useful tools, when used properly, and I think most skeptics agree.

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Often when confronted with a new danger we cannot fathom, we dismiss and denigrate, ignore and equivocate. Don’t Look Up, released in December 2021, is a hilarious (if dark) spoof and parody on the times we live in. The movie hit home to physicist and CSI Fellow Mark Boslough, whose field it depicts and who is among those who have campaigned for realistic Hollywood portrayals of scientists. He comments on it in this issue. One of the movie’s strengths is the portrayal of the two main astronomers by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. Boslough talked to the film’s astronomy tech advisor, his friend Prof. Amy Mainzer, who says she helped coach the two actors on how to make the scientists authentic. It shows. These may be the best movie portrayals of scientists since Jody Foster in Contact.

From its launch on Christmas morning to the opening of its eighteen complex hexagonal mirrors on January 8 to its insertion into orbit around the sun at the L2 point nearly a million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope has given humanity an exciting gift to open 2022. It is hard for science-minded people not to feel joy and exuberance. The history of science tells us that advanced new observational tools transform our understanding. Congratulations to the international team of engineers, technicians, scientists, and managers who have made the Webb Telescope possible. We eagerly await the first images in June.