Online thrift (节俭) store thredUP has released its tenth annual Resale Report. The study, which assesses trends in the secondhand clothing industry, has an obviously positive tone. Resale is booming in the United States, as well as globally, and the secondhand market in the US is expected to more than double by 2026, reaching an impressive valuation of $82 billion.

This is serious growth that indicates a real shift in the way people approach shopping for clothes. For most, it’s a way to save money in an inflationary (通货膨胀) economy. Forty-four percent of shoppers say they’re cutting back on buying clothing-more than any category apart from restaurants. Some say secondhand is enabling them to keep enjoying the brands they love.

When choosing what to buy, people are increasingly careful about what can be resold. More than one-fifth of Gen Z (网络新生代) shoppers said they’ll pay more for an item that they know they can resell, and 36% of Gen Z shoppers stock and clear their closets at the same monthly or weekly rate. More than half resold clothing last year. As resale becomes more accessible thanks to mobile technology and online platforms, increasing numbers of customers are keen to turn over their closets, which fuels the industry and keeps the market full of fresh finds, bringing people back for more.

Secondhand helps to relieve people’s climate-related concerns. Thrifting is far better for the environment than buying new. As thredUP reported in 2021,buying used reduces an item’s carbon footprint by 82%. Choosing used over new displaces 17.4 pounds of CO2 emissions. It requires far less water and energy to produce, and it spares that item from going to landfill, where it will break down and give off methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than CO2.

It’s great to hear such positive news. Thrifting is a no-brainer, when you stop to think about it-well-made and good-looking fashion that helps the planet while saving us money. The more mainstream it can get, the better off we’ll all be.

University educators largely think highly of the wonders of teaching through technology, but skeptics question whether something is lost when professors and lectures rely too heavily on electronic media or when interaction with students takes place remotely—in cyberspace rather than the real space of the classroom. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, the Professor of Literature at Stanford University, is one such skeptic.“I think this enthusiastic and sometimes childish and blind pushing toward the more technology the better, the more websites the better teacher, and so forth, is very dangerous—is, indeed, suicidal,” he indicates.

However, Gumbrecht warns that there are few, if any, studies either supporting or rejecting the hypothesis(假说) that traditional ways of teaching are superior to teaching via the Internet. He says that he could point only to his “intuition(直觉) that real classroom presence should be maintained”, and emphasizes the need for educators to examine critically where technology serves a useful pedagogical(教学法的) function and where it does not.

Yet, Gumbrecht allows that, for courses in which knowledge transmission is the sole purpose, electronic media probably can do the job well enough. Indeed, given the 20th century's knowledge explosion and the increasing costs of higher education, using technology as opposed to real-life teachers for the transmission of information is probably unavoidable, he admits. In any case, knowledge transmission should not be the core function of the university, he maintains, noting that universities should be places where people confront open questions, places for “intellectual complexity” and “riskful thinking”.

“We are not about finding or transmitting solutions; we are not about recipes; we are not about making intellectual life easy. Confrontation with complexity is what expands your mind. It is something like intellectual gymnastics. And this is what makes you a suitable member of the society.”

Moreover, discussions in the physical presence of others can lead to the intellectual innovation(创新). “There's a qualitative change, and you don't know how it happens. Discussions in the physical presence have the capacity of being the catalyst(催化剂) for such intellectual breakthroughs. The possibility of in-classroom teaching—of letting something happen which cannot happen if you teach by the transmission of information—is a strength.”

The first person to receive a brain-monitoring device from neurotechnology company Neuralink can control a computer cursor(光标) with his mind, Elon Musk, the firm’s founder, revealed this week. But researchers say that this is not a major feat — and they are concerned about the secrecy around the device’s safety and performance.

Musk announced on 29 January that Neuralink had implanted a brain–computer interface (BCI) into a human for the first time. Neuralink, which is headquartered in Fremont, California, is the third company to start long-term trials in humans.

The Neuralink chip contains 64 flexible polymer threads, providing 1,024 sites for recording brain activity according to the company’s study brochure. That is considerably more than Blackrock Neurotech’s BCIs, the only other single-neuron recording system to have been implanted long-term in humans. So the Neuralink device can improve brain–machine communication.

The company has also produced a surgical robot for inserting its device. But it has not confirmed whether that system was used for the first human implant. Details about the first recipient are also scarce, although Neuralink’s volunteer recruitment brochure says that people with quadriplegia(四肢瘫痪者) stemming from certain conditions “may qualify”.

This week, Musk said on Spaces — an audio component of his social-media platform X — that the volunteer “seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of” and “is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking”.

To researchers working on implanted neurotechnologies, this achievement is underwhelming. Controlling a computer mouse with one’s thoughts could enable people living with paralysis to regain some independence and functionality. But it is a far cry from Musk’s ambitions for the Neuralink device. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer,” Musk wrote last month on X. “That is the goal.”

However, even more important at this stage, researchers say, is safety — of both the device and the surgery. Sheth says he and other researchers are in the dark about the system’s first application in the clinic.