
One of the key factors that differentiate the rules for new and old users lies in the loyalty and commitment they have demonstrated towards Tencent Video. Long-time subscribers who have been with the platform for an extended period may be rewarded with special privileges or incentives as a token of appreciation for their continued support. In contrast, new users may need to familiarize themselves with the platform's offerings and gradually build their relationship with Tencent Video to potentially unlock additional benefits in the future.. hen asked why he didn’t begin writing novels until his 30s, the celebrated Czech author Milan Kundera said he didn’t have the requisite experience when he was younger. “This jerk that I was, I wouldn’t like to see him,” he added. Many of us look back at our former selves and wince to recall our immaturity. We vary quite a lot in the degree to which we feel friendly toward, and connected to, both our former and our future selves. Psychologists call this trait self-continuity, and suggest that it carries enormous weight in determining our long-term well-being. In recent years, increasing research has shown that a sense of coherence between our past and present selves can bolster mental health and, particularly, . Our connection to our future selves, on the other hand, can sway on our future welfare, from to . Self-continuity, says Cornell University gerontologist Corinna Löckenhoff, who researches the trait, gives us “an understanding of where we came from and where we’re going. It gives us direction and purpose and identity.” The 19th-century psychologist William James compared human experience to being perched on a saddle “from which we look in two directions into time.” But modern researchers have found that the ability—or willingness—to look meaningfully in either direction varies from person to person, just like other psychological traits such as being extroverted or introverted. “Some people feel a great degree of overlap and continuity with their future selves, and some people don’t even think about that self, and it feels almost like a stranger,” says psychologist Hal Hershfield of the University of California, Los Angeles. Most studies of self-continuity look to the future, not the past. Researchers typically measure future self-continuity by asking people how similar they feel to an imagined future self. In a 2009 study of 164 people, for example, Hershfield and his team employed a series of Venn diagrams, with two circles overlapping to various degrees. Participants were asked to pick the circle pair best describing . People’s responses ranged from almost no overlap to almost complete overlap. The differences between people depend on a hodgepodge of factors, in addition to basic influences of nature and nurture. Studies have reported that , whose expected time horizons are shorter, tend to have a greater sense of self-continuity, as do members of , which, as some scholars speculate, tend to have a more holistic, connected world view. But researchers have found that people struggling with , tend to feel less connected to their future selves. The degree of coherence we feel with ourselves over time can support or sabotage us. People with a sturdier connection with their future selves may be more likely to pay for future benefits, and vice versa. The comedian Jerry Seinfeld illustrates the conflict in his riff about how Morning Guy always suffers for the carpe-diem antics of Night Guy: “You get up in the morning, your alarm, you’re exhausted and groggy,” he says. “Oh, I hate that Night Guy! See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. ...” The same tension is evident in the broader and more serious failure by many Americans to save for retirement. In a 2022 survey of more than 1,100 retirees, 70 percent said . Hershfield says this emerging crisis is what drew him to focus his research on self-continuity and its behavioral consequences. He and others have found that people with more self-continuity are more likely to engage in behaviors that deliver future benefits, including not only saving for retirement but also taking better care of their health in the present. People with stronger self-continuity are also more likely to behave ethically and responsibly, Hershfield’s research suggests. In a 2012 study, he and colleagues measured the self-continuity of 85 Northwestern University students, then followed up with a test to assess their ethical conduct. Only 50 percent of those who scored low in self-continuity showed up for the follow-up, they found, compared with 73 percent of those who scored high. What’s more, of the low scorers who did show up, 77 percent were willing to lie to an anonymous partner to earn more money when tested with a “ ,” while only 36 percent of the high scorers would do so. A stronger sense of connection with one’s future self may also push people toward environmentally responsible behavior. In a 2022 study, researchers recruited 175 undergraduate students at an unnamed United States public university, randomly assigning them into three groups: one that was encouraged to visualize themselves at age 60, and the others told to visualize themselves, or another person, at the present time. Afterward, all of the students played a game where they could take simulated fish from a pool. The students who focused on their future selves limited the number of fish they took each round , the experiment revealed, while those who focused on the present were more likely to quickly exhaust the pool. For more than a decade, scientists have searched for ways to manipulate self-continuity in study participants to try to get them to behave more prudently. They have reported success with a variety of approaches, including having people interact with a of themselves, sometimes with the help of . Most recently, a new program called developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, offers young people a chance to chat with an online, AI-generated simulation of themselves at age 60. A recent found that users who interacted with their future selves reported “increased future self-continuity” and, perhaps as a consequence, significantly less anxiety, compared with those who did not. Future You is a high-tech version of a technique long practiced by high school teachers and counselors who encourage students to write letters to their future selves, as if writing to a pen pal. In a pilot study of high school students in Japan, social psychologist Anne E. Wilson, at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, took the exercise one step further. She and her colleague Yuta Chishima instructed students who had written the letter to their future selves to respond to it as they imagined their future selves might. Writing a letter back from the future made the students feel , the researchers found. A month later, students who had written back from their future self’s perspective reported “more intensive career planning and a greater willingness to study hard at school even when temptations beckon,” compared with students who wrote only the single letter, . To be sure, there are times when a shorter horizon may be useful, researchers from the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom note in the 2023 . For example, too strong a sense of continuity with one’s past self might hamper efforts in the present to abandon “sunk costs”—investments already made in a doomed plan or project—they report. The same may apply to quitting a such as . “A bad past could be like an anchor for someone,” says Wilson. “Like, ‘If I’ve failed at this in the past, it means I’m going to fail at this in the future.’ “On the other hand,” adds Wilson, “a bad past could be something that we learn from and then figure out different strategies for the future, so we don’t keep making the same mistakes.” Perhaps like Milan Kundera, who so forcefully repudiated the man he was in his 20s, and died at 94 in 2023, after a long and celebrated writing career. Posted on is a journalist and author and co-author of 12 nonfiction books, including the ADHD family memoir, . Cutting-edge science, unraveled by the very brightest living thinkers.The team that President-elect Donald Trump has selected to lead federal health agencies in his second administration includes a retired congressman, a surgeon and a former talk-show host. All could play pivotal roles in fulfilling a political agenda that could change how the government goes about safeguarding Americans' health — from health care and medicines to food safety and science research. In line to lead the Department of Health and Human Services secretary is environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine organizer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump's choices don't have experience running large bureaucratic agencies, but they know how to talk about health on TV. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pick Dr. Mehmet Oz hosted a talk show for 13 years and is a well-known wellness and lifestyle influencer. The pick for the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, and for surgeon general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, are frequent Fox News contributors. Many on the list were critical of COVID-19 measures like masking and booster vaccinations for young people. Some of them have ties to Florida like many of Trump's other Cabinet nominees: Dave Weldon, the pick for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, represented the state in Congress for 14 years and is affiliated with a medical group on the state's Atlantic coast. Nesheiwat's brother-in-law is Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., tapped by Trump as national security adviser. Here's a look at the nominees' potential role in carrying out what Kennedy says is the task to “reorganize” agencies, which have an overall $1.7 trillion budget, employ 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials, and effect Americans' daily lives: The Atlanta-based CDC, with a $9.2 billion core budget, is charged with protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other public health threats. Kennedy has long attacked vaccines and criticized the CDC, repeatedly alleging corruption at the agency. He said on a 2023 podcast that there is "no vaccine that is safe and effective,” and urged people to resist the CDC's guidelines about if and when kids should get vaccinated. The World Health Organization estimates that vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives over the past 50 years, and that 100 million of them were infants. Decades ago, Kennedy found common ground with Weldon, 71, who served in the Army and worked as an internal medicine doctor before he represented a central Florida congressional district from 1995 to 2009. Starting in the early 2000s, Weldon had a prominent part in a debate about whether there was a relationship between a vaccine preservative called thimerosal and autism. He was a founding member of the Congressional Autism Caucus and tried to ban thimerosal from all vaccines. Kennedy, then a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, believed there was a tie between thimerosal and autism and also charged that the government hid documents showing the danger. Since 2001, all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market and routinely recommended for children 6 years or younger have contained no thimerosal or only trace amounts, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Meanwhile, study after study after study found no evidence that thimerosal caused autism. Weldon's congressional voting record suggests he may go along with Republican efforts to downsize the CDC, including to eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which works on topics like drownings, drug overdoses and shooting deaths. Weldon also voted to ban federal funding for needle-exchange programs as an approach to reduce overdoses, and the National Rifle Association gave him an “A” rating for his pro-gun rights voting record. Kennedy is extremely critical of the FDA, which has 18,000 employees and is responsible for the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs, vaccines and other medical products, as well as overseeing cosmetics, electronic cigarettes and most foods. Makary, Trump’s pick to run the FDA, is closely aligned with Kennedy on several topics. The professor at Johns Hopkins University who is a trained surgeon and cancer specialist has decried the overprescribing of drugs, the use of pesticides on foods and the undue influence of pharmaceutical and insurance companies over doctors and government regulators. Kennedy has suggested he'll clear out “entire” FDA departments and also recently threatened to fire FDA employees for “aggressive suppression” of a host of unsubstantiated products and therapies, including stem cells, raw milk, psychedelics and discredited COVID-era treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Makary's contrarian views during the COVID-19 pandemic included questioning the need for masking and giving young kids COVID-19 vaccine boosters. But anything Makary and Kennedy might want to do when it comes to unwinding FDA regulations or revoking long-standing vaccine and drug approvals would be challenging. The agency has lengthy requirements for removing medicines from the market, which are based on federal laws passed by Congress. The agency provides health care coverage for more than 160 million people through Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, and also sets Medicare payment rates for hospitals, doctors and other providers. With a $1.1 trillion budget and more than 6,000 employees, Oz has a massive agency to run if confirmed — and an agency that Kennedy hasn't talked about much when it comes to his plans. While Trump tried to scrap the Affordable Care Act in his first term, Kennedy has not taken aim at it yet. But he has been critical of Medicaid and Medicare for covering expensive weight-loss drugs — though they're not widely covered by either. Trump said during his campaign that he would protect Medicare, which provides insurance for older Americans. Oz has endorsed expanding Medicare Advantage — a privately run version of Medicare that is popular but also a source of widespread fraud — in an AARP questionnaire during his failed 2022 bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania and in a 2020 Forbes op-ed with a former Kaiser Permanente CEO. Oz also said in a Washington Examiner op-ed with three co-writers that aging healthier and living longer could help fix the U.S. budget deficit because people would work longer and add more to the gross domestic product. Neither Trump nor Kennedy have said much about Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income Americans. Trump's first administration reshaped the program by allowing states to introduce work requirements for recipients. Kennedy doesn't appear to have said much publicly about what he'd like to see from surgeon general position, which is the nation's top doctor and oversees 6,000 U.S. Public Health Service Corps members. The surgeon general has little administrative power, but can be an influential government spokesperson on what counts as a public health danger and what to do about it — suggesting things like warning labels for products and issuing advisories. The current surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, declared gun violence as a public health crisis in June. Trump's pick, Nesheiwat, is employed as a New York City medical director with CityMD, a group of urgent care facilities in the New York and New Jersey area, and has been at City MD for 12 years. She also has appeared on Fox News and other TV shows, authored a book on the “transformative power of prayer” in her medical career and endorses a brand of vitamin supplements. She encouraged COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, calling them “a gift from God” in a February 2021 Fox News op-ed, as well as anti-viral pills like Paxlovid. In a 2019 Q&A with the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation, Nesheiwat said she is a “firm believer in preventive medicine” and “can give a dissertation on hand-washing alone.” As of Saturday, Trump had not yet named his choice to lead the National Institutes of Health, which funds medical research through grants to researchers across the nation and conducts its own research. It has a $48 billion budget. Kennedy has said he'd pause drug development and infectious disease research to shift the focus to chronic diseases. He'd like to keep NIH funding from researchers with conflicts of interest, and criticized the agency in 2017 for what he said was not doing enough research into the role of vaccines in autism — an idea that has long been debunked. Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz and Matt Perrone and AP editor Erica Hunzinger contributed to this report. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. This story has been corrected to reflect that the health agencies have an overall budget of about $1.7 trillion, not $1.7 billion.Who is “Blockchain Pedro”, the host of the house where Yishum Qiu died?
Carbon monoxide, a colorless and odorless gas, is produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing fuels such as natural gas, propane, and wood. When inhaled, carbon monoxide can quickly build up in the bloodstream, displacing oxygen and leading to symptoms such as headache, dizziness, nausea, and in severe cases, unconsciousness and even death.