Sophie Bushwick
at 13:50 PM Dec 14 2015

This week, Google announced a breakthrough that could prove its quantum computer is actually using quantum mechanics. When researchers gave the D-Wave 2X a carefully crafted test problem, the 1,000-qubit computer solved it 100,000,000 times faster than a classical computer could.

By Arthur Fisher / Popular Science, July 1970
at 07:18 AM Mar 10 2015
Gadgets // 

Breakthrough. It's a much-abused word—a pity at a time like this. Because here is a genuine, 24-karat breakthrough in timekeeping.

Lacey Henry
at 03:30 AM Jun 26 2013
Space // 

Cancer researchers looking for a breakthrough might want to relocate to the International Space Station. Biologists have found that microgravity research and other space-based experiments provide greater insight into abnormal cell behavior.

Clay Risen
at 02:00 AM Jan 4 2013

During 2012, two scientific teams announced, in separate studies, that they had transformed ordinary adult skin cells into neural cells, a breakthrough that could change the course of human stem cell research. Stem cells hold enormous potential for medicine because they can develop from undifferentiated cells into a variety of specialized ones. But their use has been stymied by ethical concerns; most are harvested from human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

Rebecca Boyle
at 09:00 AM Dec 1 2011
Tech // 

In a potential breakthrough for cryptography, a new laser light-scattering technique could be a fast and efficient way to generate truly random numbers, creating unknowable code formulas that will be able to thwart even the most sophisticated hackers. Led by Canadian researchers, the new method relies on the bizarre characteristics of quantum uncertainty.

Clay Dillow
at 08:07 AM Nov 10 2011

In a breakthrough that is sure to thrill optical ailment sufferers and stoners everywhere, a team of Auburn University researchers has invented a new kind of drug-delivering contact lens that could make the medicinal eye drop a thing of the past. Their lenses are the first to deliver drug doses evenly for as long as the lens is worn, a method that is roughly 100 times more effective than putting sporadic eye drops in the eye.

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