Three years into my postdoc (博士后), I started to wonder whether I needed a new career plan. After applying for more than two dozen teaching jobs, I hadn’t landed a single interview.

I had once considered going to art school but had put that idea to the side when I decided to pursue chemistry as an undergraduate. In the years that followed, I kept up my interest in art by taking painting classes at night. My family was bursting with mathematicians, computer programmers, and engineers, so it felt natural to have my daily life center around science.

But in the spring after my failed job search, that started to change after a friend excitedly showed me proofs of a review article. She was astonished by what the journal’s scientific illustrator had done with her fundamental sketches (速写). “That would be such a fun job.” I thought.

I decided to test out a new career direction by volunteering to create similar illustrations for my institute’s newsletters. I spent my nights and weekends reading scientific papers and thinking about how to illustrate the results. It was a fun task. I felt I was perhaps on the right path. But could I make a full-time career work?

Searching online, I tracked down people who had that kind of job. I found many had training through scientific illustration master’s degree programs. After living on graduate student and postdoctoral salaries for years, I didn’t have enough money saved up for the programs, so I decided to get a certificate in digital design.

I now work as a visual designer at a biomedical research institute where I spend my days working with research to communicate their work visually. I love the fact that I get to combine my scientific and artistic sides.

Every superhero, no matter how small, needs a cape (披风). That was Rose Smith’s motivation when she started sewing superhero capes for kids with cancer, heart disease, and other serious diseases.

It all began when Rose heard of a girl named Anna. Anna was fighting against a potentially deadly skin condition called harlequin ichthyosis (丑角鱼鳞廯). What she was going through was really tough, but she faced it bravely. “I had a happy moment,” Rose says. “Anna was a superhero! She needed a cape.”

So, Rose sent her one, and Anna’s mother was delighted. After that, Rose found ten more kids online and sent out ten more capes. Before long, she quit her job at a software company and work full time for the website-www.tinysuperheroes.com, where people can buy handmade capes for brave kids facing illness and disability.

Since 2013, Rose and her small paid staff have sent more than 12,000 handmade capes to kids in all 50 states and 15 other countries. The capes can be made in different colors and can be decorated with the child’s initials (姓氏首字母) or specialized patches, including a heart or a rocket.

One was five-year-old Gary. He was born with heart defects. Rose sent him a red cape with a bright yellow G in the center. It was a hit. Gary, who is now a frequenter on the company’s social media posts, becomes a very well-known kid. In fact, two years later, “We still bring Gary’s cape with us to every hospital appointment, as it brings him much power to face his disease,” said Gary’s mom.

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is famous worldwide for having developed Facebook, the most widely used social networking website. He was born to Edward, and his wife Karen, on May 14, 1984.Edward was a dentist, while Karen worked as a doctor. The young boy was brought up in the village of Dobbs Ferry.

He pursued his education from the Ardsley High School, New York, and later the Phillips Exeter Academy, where he exhibited flair for astronomy, mathematics, physics, English classical literature and foreign languages. He was also asked to lead the fencing (击剑) team of the Phillips Exeter Academy.

While in middle school, Mark was taught Atari BASIC Programming by his father. Eventually software programmer David Newman began teaching the young boy everything about programming. The talented young child was in high school when he enrolled with Mercy College, to pursue a course in software programming. During this time, he developed a software called ZuckNet to create a communication network between the computers in his father’s dental office and those at home.

While still a student at Harvard University, he launched his website Facebook, along with college friends. Though at first he was accused by some senior students of having stolen their idea, his site’s popularity was not affected. Facebook saw a steady rise in the number of active users per month. The website started out as a networking platform only for Harvard University, and then was opened for other colleges. Soon, it became available to general public, and gained widespread popularity for its user-friendly interface (界面). Zuckerberg is now the chairman and CEO of the company Facebook, Inc, earning one dollar as his salary. His website has made him so popular that the film The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg, was made based on a book, The Accidental Billionaires, which recorded Mark’s life.