'Quantum' leap is 2010's top science breakthrough

Kerry Sheridan

WASHINGTON (AFP) – It's not exactly time travel, but a tiny machine that can move to a quantum groove is the journal Science's top breakthrough of the year in 2010, the magazine said on Thursday.

The device concocted by US physicists displays for the first time a kind of quantum motion typically seen in molecules, atoms and subatomic particles but never achieved before by a human-made object.

Scientists were able to coax the machine, a tiny metal paddle of a semiconductor, into vibrating "a little and a lot at the same time," said the Science story.

"Mind you, physicists still haven't achieved a two-places-at-once state with a tiny object like this one," said the journal's Adrian Cho.

"But now that they have reached the simplest state of quantum motion, it seems a whole lot more obtainable -- more like a matter of 'when' than 'if.'"

The sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, a pair of advances in HIV prevention and an improvement in lab rats, were among the other nine groundbreaking achievements of the year, the journal said.

Important genome advances were seen throughout 2010, according to the list compiled by Science reporters and editors who cover breaking news and research all year round.

Among them, the creation of the first synthetic genome which replaced a bacterium's DNA so it produced new proteins sparked controversy over humans' potential to alter life forms, but a White House panel has deemed those concerns overblown.

A process called RNA reprogramming has been shown to work with synthetic RNA -- one of the three macromolecules essential for life (along with DNA and proteins) -- allowing scientists to turn back the developmental clocks of cells so they become unspecialized stem cells.

"The new technique is twice as fast, 100 times as efficient and potentially safer for therapeutic use," said the journal.

Another advance was the study of a genome's protein codes, or exons, which has led to new revelations in the study of a dozen rare inherited diseases.

The discovery of the Neanderthal genome allowed scientists to truly compare, for the first time, the differences between modern humans and Neanderthals using samples of three females found in Croatia between 38,000 and 44,000 years ago.

And faster, less expensive genome sequencing technologies have shown more than has ever been known before about what makes us uniquely human.

In another physics advance alongside the quantum machine, scientists devised a quantum simulator that offers a short-cut through "fiendishly hard" theories in condensed-matter physics, Science said.

Nearly three decades into the AIDS epidemic, which afflicts 33 million people around the world, two HIV prevention methods -- a vaginal gel and an oral pill -- showed promise in reducing infection rates among some groups.

Finally, scientists have found a way to manipulate rats -- the preferred test subject for lab researchers over mice because their systems are more similar to humans'-- by making "knockout rats" that have certain genes disabled, an advance that is certain to bring rats back into the lab "in a big way."

To commemorate the end of the decade, the magazine's reporters and editors also compiled the 10 "insights that have changed the face of science since the dawn of the new millennium."

They include the discoveries of ancient DNA, water on Mars, almost 500 planets outside our solar system, the role of inflammation in chronic disease, and the fact that humans are contributing to climate change.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101216/sc_afp/scienceusresearchyear2010

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