Nobody knows the value of a good doll better than Jandrisevits. “Dolls have a power we don’t completely understand,” she said. It’s a conclusion she came to while working as a social worker using dolls to help her young clients adapt to their changing medical situations. Many of the kids saw themselves in those dolls. But for the kids missing a limb or who had lost their hair, there were none they could relate to.

So, seven years ago, when a friend revealed that her child was stuck in self-doubt and self-distrust, Jandrisevits, now 49, knew what might help the youth through this potentially challenging period. “It’s hard to tell a kid, ‘You are perfect the way you are,’ and to build self-esteem (自尊) that way, but never offer them anything that looks like them,”she says.

Jandrisevits went about changing that. She crafted a doll by hand — using fabric, stitching, and markers — that resembled (像) her friend’s child and sent it off. After the friend posted a photo online of the happy child and doll, another woman asked Jandrisevits to make a doll that looked like her baby, who was missing a leg.

Word spread, and soon Jandrisevits was making dolls for children with scars, birthmarks, facial deformities(畸形), — in short, a doll that looked like them. She quit her job and started a nonprofit, A Doll Like Me.

Working out of her home in Milwaukee, from photos sent by parents or caregivers, it takes Jandrisevits roughly three days to craft only one doll. A GoFundMe page helps her cover costs and allows her to donate her services. She hasn’t charged for a doll since she began her nonprofit.

In all, she’s made more than 400 dolls. The waiting list is long, but Jandriscvits will never give up. As she explains on her GoFundMe page, “Every kid, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, medical issue, or body type, should look into the sweet face of a doll and see their own.”

It’s reported that the American College Board has made several changes to the SAT test to help more poor students receive higher education. It offers a scoring criterion beyond its own SAT test, which measures only oral and math skills. The new tool is designed to help admissions officers find if applicants have risen above limitations in their social or economic circumstances by expressing a particular characteristic: resourcefulness(足智多谋).

The new criterion, called ECD, has been tried by 50 colleges over the past year and will be carried out by 150 institutions this fall. Relying on public data , it looks at 15 factors(因素) in neighborhoods and schools that might passively influence a candidate’s college readiness. These statistics include crime rates, education levels, joblessness, and the family members that receive food stamps. It applicants come from a highly disadvantaged background yet have proper but perhaps not high SAT scores , a college might then admit them.

Resourcefulness shows an ability to seek support outside one’s self. It requires a clear purpose in learning. The new tool “shines a light on students who have shown remarkable resourcefulness to overcome challenges and achieve more with less,” says David Coleman, the College Board’s president.

The ECD also has the advantage of not taking race into consideration in admissions, a practice being increasingly closed off by the Supreme Court and many states. At the same time, in stressing a key quality for academic success, it may help prevent discrimination in admissions.

The tool is not an absolute measure of resourcefulness. It misses other types of circumstances, such as personal or family problems. Colleges must weigh many factors in admissions. Still, it could lead to a greater focus on character in education beyond the traditional pursuit (追求) of knowledge and career skills. Graduates who have stood out despite their hardships are highly desired by today’s employers.

About a year and a half ago, Patrick Doherty found out he had a rare, but disastrous inherited disease—known as transthyretin amyloidosis—that had killed his father. A misshapen protein was building up in his body, destroying important tissues. Victims of this disease often die a difficult death.

So Doherty was thrilled when he found out that doctors were testing a new way to try to treat amyloidosis. The approach used a revolutionary gene-editing technique called CRISPR, which allows scientists to make very precise changes in DNA. On Saturday, researchers reported the first data indicating that the experimental treatment worked, causing levels of the destructive protein to decrease in Doherty’s body.

CRISPR has already been shown to help some patients. And doctors are trying to use it to treat cancer and to restore vision to people blinded by a rare genetic disorder. But those experiments involve taking cells out of the body, editing them in the lab, and putting them back in or injecting CRISPR directly into cells that need fixing.

The study Doherty volunteered for is the first in which doctors are simply putting the gene-editor directly into patients and letting it find its own way to the right gene in the right cells. In this case, it’s cells in the liver making the destructive protein.

“It really is exciting,” says Dr. Julian Gillmore, who is leading the study at the University College London, Royal Free Hospital. “This has the potential to completely revolutionize the outcome for these patients who have lived with this disease in their family for many generations.” The patients will have to be followed longer, and more patients will have to be treated, to make sure the treatment’s safe, and determine how much it’s helping. Gillmore stresses.

The promising results potentially open the door for using the same approach to treatment of many other, more common diseases for which taking cells out of the body or directly injecting CRISPR isn’t realistic, including heart disease and brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s.