1 . “Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.

Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.

For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.

However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.

A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?

2 . According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 80 million American adults are constantly sleep deprived (睡眠不足), meaning they sleep less than the recommended minimum of seven hours a night. If you’re one of those people who are proud of being able to fall asleep quickly just about anywhere, it’s too early to gloat — it’s a distinct sign, especially if you’re less than 40 years old, that you’re severely sleep deprived.

During our lifetimes, about a third of us will suffer from at least one diagnosable sleep disorder, ranging from constant insomnia (失眠) to restless leg syndrome to much rarer and stranger conditions.

Insomnia is by far the most common problem, the main reason 4 percent of U.S. adults take sleeping pills in any given month. Insomniacs generally take longer to fall asleep, wake up for long periods during the night, or both. They have a high risk of depression, psychosis, and stroke. Lack of sleep is also directly tied to obesity: Without enough sleep, the stomach and other organs overproduce the hunger hormone (荷尔蒙), causing us to eat more. If sleep is such a natural phenomenon, why do so many of us have such trouble with it?

The problem is that in the modern world our ancient, inborn wake-up call is constantly set off by non-life-threatening situations like anxiety before an exam, worries about finances, or every car alarm in the neighborhood. Before the industrial revolution, which brought us alarm clocks and fixed work schedules, we could often handle insomnia simply by sleeping in. No longer, now.

Power naps don’t solve the problem; nor does sleeping medicine. “Sleep is not a single issue.” says Jeffrey Ellenbogen, a sleep scientist at Johns Hopkins University who directs the Sound Sleep Project, “It’s a thousand different things. It’s fascinating to regulate sleep with drugs or devices, but we don’t yet understand sleep enough to artificially intervene in it.”

3 . The needs of plus size consumers have long been the elephant in the room of the fashion industry until body positivity and fat acceptance movements promoted the slogan (口号) that large-bodied people are not those who are left behind. This size-inclusive (尺码包容) trend has become so popular that it is influencing mainstream culture. As a result, fashion brands have finally decided to extend their size ranges. In 2022, the plus-size market grew twice as fast as the standard size market in both North America and the UK.

Yet, many consumers say fashion brands broadening their ranges are not truly inclusive. “Inclusive sizing means that all bodies are included in fashion, not just the ones who fit in standard sizes,” says Marie Southard Ospina, a UK-based journalist who covers body-image issues. “However, what many designers do right now is pick a number that they think is big enough to include plus sizes and stop. This is even more disrespectful.”

Researchers also criticize that some brands are just taking advantage of the trend. “Brands that used to promote so-called perfect bodies in their advertisements are now trying to get in on the trend by adding a few sizes. It doesn’t feel like they really care about plus-size people,” says Tom Burgess, analyst in fashion industry. “If brands cared about large-bodied consumers, then it wouldn’t have taken until now to acknowledge that they exist,” he says. “It gives the impression that companies are just trying to gain a share of the market without a real commitment to the community.”

The fashion industry must go beyond merely producing clothing in a range of sizes if they hope to succeed with a body -diverse world. The whole industry has to connect on a personal level with consumers. That involves showing shoppers that they are seen, understood and important to brands. “Consumers care about values, and so they want to buy from brands that reflect the values they believe in. Everyone should enjoy the same range of fashion options,” says Ludovica Cesareo, professor of marketing at the College of Business in the US.

4 . A vast majority of people usually argue that cycling can make a significant contribution to our world. In reality, there is a gap between desired and actual numbers. In Germany, for instance, only 20% of the everyday short-distance trips are covered by bicycle. When enquiring about the causes, researchers found one point repeatedly tops the list: the perceived or potential risk on the bike routes used. Increasing the share of cycling trips thus depends crucially on well-developed bike paths.

However, designing efficient bike path networks is a complex task that involves balancing a variety of limitations while meeting overall demand. In addition, many districts are confronted with a shortage of funds available for improving the infrastructure. Researchers propose a new approach to generating efficient bike path networks. This considers demand distribution and the route option of cyclists based on preferences for secure outings. Typically, minimizing the travel distance is far from the solely goal. Aspects such as attractiveness of a route are also taken into account.

Under real conditions, a bike path network is created by constantly adding bike paths to more streets. This time, researchers start with an ideal, complex network, in which all streets in a city are equipped with a bike path. In a virtual process, they gradually remove less used bike path sections from this network. The route selection of cyclists is continuously updated. Thus, a series of bike path networks is created and is always adapted to the current usage. Each stage of it corresponds to a variant that could be carried out with less financial support.

“We illustrate the applicability of this demand-driven planning for crowded urban areas of Dresden and Hamburg,” explains researcher Christoph Steinacker. “We are approaching a real-life issue here using the theoretic toolbox of network dynamics and compare efficient bike path networks under different conditions.”

6 . The early World Wide Web would indeed revolutionize commerce, but it would do so in ways many did not fully anticipate in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the ease of setting up a website also led to a gold rush of fraud with knock-off domains impersonating banks, government agencies and household brand names. These problems persist to this day.

We can logically expect metaverse-influenced features and experiences to arrive at enterprises in much the same fashion. We’ve long known that security is a team sport, and no single vendor, product or technology can go it alone in protection. The culture of information-sharing and collaboration in the defender community today has been a monumental achievement that did not happen overnight. Today ISPs, cloud providers, device manufacturers — even industry rivals in these markets-recognize the need to work together on security issues.

It’s critical to align on key priorities to help secure the metaverse for generations — and identity, transparency and a continued sense of unity among defenders will be key.

For years cheaters have claimed to be abandoned princes with fortunes to share, or sweepstakes hosts desperately trying to reach you, but the emergence of email and text messaging re-franchised (重新授权) these schemes for the digital world in the metaverse, it won’t be a fake email from your bank. It could be an avatar (化身) of a teller in a virtual bank lobby asking for your information. It could be an impersonation of your CEO inviting you to a meeting in a malicious virtual conference room. This is why solving identity in the metaverse is a top concern. Organizations need to know that adopting metaverse-enabled Apps and experiences won’t change their identity and access control. This means we have to make identity manageable for enterprises in this new world.

Besides, there will be many providers of platforms and experiences in the metaverse, and mutual interactions can make the gaps seamless — while enabling exciting new scenarios. Think of bringing your virtual PowerPoint presentation into a client’s virtual meeting room, even if it’s operating on a different platform.

New platforms usually pose a tough challenge — that is often when security researchers really begin probing code, features and product claims. There must be clear and standard communication around terms of service, security features like where and how encryption is used, vulnerability reporting and updates.

The strides we’ve made across the tech industry in cooperating against threats as the crises have risen in recent years remain a cornerstone for security as metaverse platforms and experiences begin to shape the future.

Security researchers, chief information security officers and industry stakeholders also have an opportunity to understand the terrain of the metaverse as opponents do — and use it to our advantage. Metaverse platforms will likely create and generate entirely new data streams with the potential to improve authentication, locate suspect or malicious activity or even revisualize cybersecurity to help human analysts make decisions in the moment.

Let’s make the lessons we’ve learned about identity, transparency and the security community’s powerful collaboration our top ideals to enable this next wave of technology to reach its full potential.

7 . At some point in the stretch of days between the start of the pandemic’s third year and the feared launch of World War III, a new phrase unfolded itself before us, a mysterious foretell of an age to come: people were going “goblin mode”.

The term embraces the comforts of depravity(堕落): spending the day in bed scrolling endlessly through social media; pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth; leaving the house in your pajamas and socks only to get a single Diet Coke from the store.

First appearing on Twitter as early as 2009, “goblin mode” represents a direct departure from the “cottagecore” influence of early pandemic days, a standout trend of 2020 that thrived under the wistful ethos of making the best of what many people assumed would be only a few boring weeks at home in 2020.

But as the pandemic wears on endlessly, and the chaos of current events worsens, people feel cheated by the system and have rejected such goals. “The trend sets an unrealistic standard for people to think that if they aren’t waking up early to exercise, their lives are not put together”, one blog indicting “cottagecore” culture reads.

Most people tweeting about goblin mode characterize it as an almost spiritual-level embrace of our most debased tendencies and call it a logical progression into nihilism(虚无主义)after years of disappointment. However, Marnell, an author who has been tweeting extensively in recent weeks about entering goblin mode, says there is “healthy goblin mode and destructive goblin mode”. For her, it represents a certain air of harmless mischief. “It is cool to be a goblin,” Marnell says. “Everyone is so perfect all the time online, it is good to get in touch with the strange little creature that lives inside you.”

10 . In a video from Visit Iceland, a crew is seen working on making a horse-sized keyboard out of massive blocks of wood. The keyboard is then put outside against the gorgeous scenery for the typing horses to reply to emails. Unsurprisingly, the replies are nonsense, with examples listed as “bpnisi. // hihaihf＝. sf”. “OutHorse Your Email” is Iceland’s latest stunt (噱头) to promote tourism. Visitors can choose a trained horse to type responses to their work emails when they are on holiday.

Due to the pandemic, many workers have transitioned to remote working, finding that the lines between their work and personal lives have become blurred. A survey conducted by Visit Iceland revealed that 59% of people globally now feel as if their boss, colleagues, and customers expect them to reply when on holiday and 41% of people check their work emails between one and four times a day when on holiday. That’s why Iceland is assigning emails to its horses, asking them to make replies.

“When visitors travel to Iceland, we want them to fully experience everything our nation has to offer, from breathtaking surroundings to endless landscapes," said the head of Visit Iceland. "Our OutHorse Your Email service lets them do just that. With our world-first service, we hope to appeal to people to disconnect and take a well-deserved, uninterrupted break.”

Since “OutHorse Your Email” service was launched, it has got a lot of attention from the Internet. “Is it a ridiculous tourism stunt? Sure. But it indeed encourages me to enjoy my trip wholeheartedly,” said Thom Dunn, an online user from Canada. Hunter Boyce from the USA also made a comment, “The service sounds interesting, but I don’t want to drive my boss mad or be fired.”