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Countries move to reimpose lockdowns. Israel goes into a three-week lockdown starting today while France, England and the Netherlands are also considering new restrictions on social gatherings. The WHO warned that the coronavirus situation is “very serious” in Europe.
TikTok could end up American-owned, after all. Oracle and Walmart could take a majority stake in a new company that oversees TikTok’s global business, based on an ownership structure that is under discussion. If the plan is accepted by the White House, TikTok could also go public in the US next year.
The US mulls to renew sanctions on selling arms to Iran. President Donald Trump plans to restrict US market access for anyone breaching an embargo on selling conventional weapons to Iran via an executive order. An existing UN embargo is set to expire on October 18.
Ant Group moves closer to its public debut. Shanghai’s STAR Market will review the IPO application for the Alibaba-backed fintech company, which also plans to list in Hong Kong. It could be the world’s largest IPO this year.
Thais plan a major demonstration. Student protest leaders expect tens of thousands to march on government offices in Bangkok tomorrow to demand that the military-backed administration be dissolved, a new constitution be drafted, and the monarchy be reformed.
QZ&A: What’s Joe Biden’s plan for space?
Election day in the US is just seven weeks away… and space is not the top issue. Still, changes at the White House are the rare moments that can shift the slow-grinding gears of the US space program. Quartz spoke to Casey Dreier, the senior space policy adviser at the Planetary Society, about what’s on the horizon for US space policy. Read more…
Charting science’s widening gender gap
Covid-19 has disproportionately forced women to trade paid work for care work. Academic medical researchers are no exception. An analysis of two major scientific research databases found that the proportion of papers with female authors has declined during the pandemic.
The authors of the study suggest that female scientists face more caregiving duties than their male counterparts, impairing their ability to work from home.
To be sure, a single published paper can represent years of research and analysis, so these figures don’t necessarily reflect a slowdown in experimental work done in labs. More likely, the widening gender gap reflects interruptions in the writing and application process for scientific studies.
MORE ADS, LESS SHOW
TV watchers spend more time viewing ads than ever before. Many popular US network TV shows have gotten shorter over the last decade—because advertising time has taken up a bigger part of every broadcast hour.
Thankfully, there are signs this trend will reverse. But that doesn’t mean that TV advertising is going away. Find out what’s next in this week’s field guide—and if you’re not already a member, please sign up to become one today.
Obsession interlude: How we spend
What we think of as personal style is often really the result of sophisticated commercial machinery that synthesizes authentic trends into goods suitable for mass consumption.
Perhaps no one has explained this better than Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep’s character in the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada, based on Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Let’s revisit Priestly’s infamous upbraiding of her assistant for dismissing the import of the fashion industry:
You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select… I don’t know… that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise. It’s not lapis. It’s actually cerulean. And you’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.
Stay in style yourself with our How We Spend obsession.
You asked about temperature checks
Do temperature checks for Covid-19 work?
In many countries, no-contact thermometers have become a common sighting outside restaurants and other businesses—but several studies have shown that many patients hospitalized for coronavirus do not show a fever. Temperatures can also vary during your daily life, and there’s some confusion about which readings even constitute a fever.
Ultimately, most experts agree that temperature checks are a form of theater, a performance intended to put our minds at ease. But the theater is partially the point. When someone steps into a restaurant or hotel, they’re still taking a risk. These thermometers help to remind all of us to continue taking the pandemic seriously.
Surprising discoveries
Mozilla is crowdsourcing bad YouTube recommendations. Its browser extension allows users to send it videos they regret watching to understand YouTube’s algorithms.
Most freezers aren’t cold enough for science. Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine must be stored at -70°C (-94°F), so ultra-cold freezer production is ramping up.
A German soccer team’s social distancing plan backfired. SG Ripdorf/Molzen only fielded seven players—and lost 37-0.
The US doesn’t have enough printing capacity for Barack Obama’s new memoir. It’s expected to sell so well that 112 shipping containers full of the books need to be imported from Germany.
A new reality show’s prize is a trip to space. Space Hero will reward its winner with a trip to the International Space Station in 2023.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, ultra-cold freezers, and tickets to space to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our iOS app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Jane Li, Isabella Steger, Annabelle Timsit, Liz Webber, and Max Lockie.