Sometimes youve got to look for the trees in the forest. The good news of 2021 was like a host of saplings little trees lost in the forest of inflation, the pandemic, and catastrophic weather events. Look closer and you will find numerous reasons to cheer, scientific discoveries and advances that give honest-to-goodness hope for humanity.

Most notably, 2021 saw one of the most-effective vaccines ever created, in record time. But thats just the beginning. We witnessed other monster breakthroughs in biology, astronomy, medicine, engineering, computing, genomics, and many more scientific fields.

With so many astounding advances in 2021, it was tough to pick the most significant but we tried anyway. Here are our favorite 15 moments worth telling the kids about. Prepare for your mind to be blown.

The development, testing, and rollout of COVID vaccines has been called the moonshot of our generation. That might be an understatement. Thanks to devoted medical researchers and tens of thousands of everyday Americans who participated in clinical trials, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines emergency use authorization for adults last December, followed by Johnson & Johnsons single-shot vaccine this February. Since then, the vaccine has become available for children as young as 5. Thats a vaccine rollout available to 94 percent of the population (under 5 are excepted so far) in little over a year. Previously, the fastest vaccine to go from development to deployment was the mumps vaccine in the 1960s which took about four years. Although were still struggling with COVID variants and breakthrough cases, this feat of inoculation has saved countless lives and holds promise for a future where we can keep up with viral outbreaks in real time.

Lots of animals can regrow a torn-off tail or a leg lost to a predator, but sea slugs have the coolest regeneration trick by a long shot. As a Japanese scientist discovered this year, these slimy creatures can behead themselves on purpose and grow a whole new body within weeks. The severed head survives on its own while it regenerates vital organs and limbs, likely due to slugs plant-like ability to photosynthesize because of all the algae they eat. Even more impressive, the discarded body lives for weeks before eventually dying off. Researchers think sea slugs use this cool maneuver to hoodwink predators and escape unharmed, or possibly to survive parasite infestations of their lower body.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) hold major promise for people with paralysis, allowing them to operate robotic limbs, wheelchairs, keypads, and other gadgets just by thinking about moving their bodies. But so far, BCIs have mostly been relegated to research settings, as theyve required bulky cables to connect a persons head to a computer to an external device.

Not anymore. The prestigious BrainGate research team has devised the worlds first high-bandwidth, totally wireless BCI that transmits brain signals as quickly and clearly as cabled systems do. In a recent clinical trial, the new device enabled two people with tetraplegia to point, click, and type on a tablet with precision and speed no wires required. More research is needed, but this is a major step toward taking BCIs out of the lab and into the real world to help people with paralysis regain independence.

Americans boundless fascination with unidentified flying objects was finally indulged in 2021. In January, by way of the Freedom of Information Act, The Black Vault website posted the CIAs recently declassified database of every UFO sighting reported by a military pilot, dating back to the 1980s. Concurrently, the CIA uploaded dozens of records of UFO sightings from the 1940s to the early 1990s.

Then, in June, the Pentagon issued a long-awaited nine-page report summarizing everything it claims to know about unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, its fancy term for UFOs. Shocker: The government doesnt know much. The report does assert that UAPs are not U.S. military craft, but otherwise, it pretty much plays the inconclusive card. But hey, although the dossier may not clear up many mysteries, the massive data dump should keep UFO-obsessed armchair detectives captivated for years to come.

About 90 percent of human brain development happens by age five. And although neuroscientists have recently learned a lot about how and when various developments occur, especially in utero, theres still a ton they dont know, particularly about the impacts of nature versus nurture. These answers are now coming, courtesy of the largest, most comprehensive trial on early brain development ever, which kicked off this fall.

Through the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study, researchers nationwide will track a diverse group of 7,500 pregnant people and their children throughout the next decade. Using neuroimaging and psychological assessments, they aim to map out the normal arc of brain development and discover how pre- and postnatal environments and exposures (stress, socioeconomic status, parents drug use, COVID, etc.) affect it as well as how kids brains adapt. This historic study has the potential to unlock prevailing mysteries about autism, dyslexia, and other childhood neurodevelopment, emotional, and behavioral concerns.

Long before COVID, malaria was and as of time of publication, still is one of the most lethal infectious diseases on the planet. This mosquito-borne pathogen kills half a million people annually, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. Over half of those malaria kills are children under age 5, Now, after a century of effort, scientists have finally developed a safe, effective malaria vaccine (the first vaccine for any parasitic disease, by the way), which the World Health Organization (WHO) greenlighted for all at-risk kids in October. Assuming nations prioritize vaccine distribution, experts estimate this breakthrough could prevent 5.3 million malaria cases and 24,000 deaths among children under 5 every year.

An estimated 1.6 million Americans live with type 1 diabetes (aka juvenile diabetes), including 200,000 kids and adults under age 20. With no known cure, this life-threatening autoimmune disease, in which the pancreas stops producing insulin to control blood sugar, almost always requires intense 24/7 management.

That may be about to change. To the shock and elation of diabetes experts, an experimental treatment delivered in an ongoing clinical trial appeared to cure a 64-year-old man of type 1 diabetes, which would be a world first. After receiving infusions of insulin-producing cells grown from stem cells, the mans body now makes insulin on its own, giving him a whole new life, as he told the New York Times.

Because this discovery is part of a five-year study involving 16 other participants, its still too soon to say with certainty whether the treatment is effective and safe long-term. But its the most promising development the world has seen in regard to a type 1 diabetes cure and likely enough to make a parent or child living with type 1 do cartwheels.

In February, almost seven months after launching from Earth, NASAs highly sophisticated Perseverance rover touched down on Mars. The vehicle will spend nearly two years on the red planet, surveying the landscape, searching for evidence of past Martian life, and collecting geological samples to bring back to Earth. Then, in April, NASAs solar-powered Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first-ever aircraft to make acontrolled flight on another planet. By December 8, Ingenuity had logged 17 successful flights.

Mars wasnt the only celestial body to make news in 2021. In November, NASA scientists validated the existence of 301 new exoplanets planets that orbit stars other than the Sun bringing the total exoplanet tally to 4,870. The validation frenzy comes courtesy of NASAs new ExoMiner deep-learning technology, which evaluates data collected by the Kepler spacecraft to distinguish legit exoplanets from convincing fakes.

One of the biggest differences between the COVID pandemic and that of the 1918 Spanish Flu (the last global pandemic) is the way that we track it. Its nearly unimaginable that we once had to follow death and infection rates by local tally and had essentially no way of knowing about new viral variants. Now, led by the WHO, scientists have a colossal global collaboration to monitor the spread and evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Huge amounts of data have been collected and shared across borders in real time, allowing researchers to get quickly gain an idea of how a variant like Delta or Omicron spreads and affects case numbers and hospitalizations. We didnt have this sort of technology available at the beginning of the pandemic. As of April 2021, the online GISAID database containedonly one million SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences. Eight months later, another five million sequences have been added. In other words, genomic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 has gotten ten times faster since the spring. This accomplishment highlights that one of the biggest challenges of science isnt discovery, but sharing discoveries, and countries across the world are now doing that in a way theyve never done before.

With the average cost of a solar panel plummeting 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, it keeps getting cheaper and cheaper to generate power directly from the sun. Thats great news, as it helps shift our reliance away from fossil fuels, a key contributor to climate change. Frustratingly, however, solar panels havent gotten much more efficient in recent years, which has hindered widespread adoption of this form of clean energy.

To solve this issue, engineers have been looking for alternative materials that can outperform the standard silicon used in solar panels and still be inexpensive. Theyve had high hopes for perovskites, atomically thin, latticed materials that convert sunlight into energy highly efficiently. The only problem? Ultraviolet rays and moisture destroy perovskites in no time, tanking their usefulness.

But this year, Rice University engineers developed and road-tested solar cells made of two-dimensional perovskites. Their invention works much better than earlier models and withstands the elements. The trick with 2D perovskites, the researchers discovered, is that sunlight contracts the spaces between the atomic layers to boost efficiency by up to 18 percent a huge leap forward in this field. With solar companies worldwide working to commercialize perovskite solar cells, this breakthrough should ultimately accelerate societys conversion to solar energy.

In January, Jean-Michel Dubernard, MD, the same surgeon who performed the first-ever hand, double hand, and partial face transplants, accomplished yet another historic feat: the worlds first double arm and shoulder transplant. The operation, performed in France, was a resounding success. The recipient, 49-year-old Felix Gretarsson of Iceland, whod lost both arms in an electrical accident in 1998, has steadily gained mobility throughout the year, charting his progress on Instagram. He can now flex his biceps, pick up objects, and hug his granddaughter. Experts expect he will make more advancements in the coming years. Sadly, Dubernard died in July, but not before giving Gretarssinan entirely new life.

This year, scientists learned a lot about the massive creatures that inhabited the Earth many millions of years ago. First up, dinosaurs. The fearsome predator Tyrannosaurus rex roamed North America starting nearly 70 million years back, and now biologists have finally estimated how many: 2.5 billion. Terrifying, right? If its any comfort, thats the total T. rex population spread out over 2.4 million years. So, really, there were only about 20,000 adult T. rexes living at one time.

Of course, that last generation of T. rex, along with the entire dinosaur kingdom, got wiped off the planet some 66 million years ago by an asteroid. Or wait, was it a comet? Thats the new theory put forth by Harvard astronomers to explain the so-called Chicxulub Impactor, the astronomical body that created a 93-mile-wide, 12-mile-deep crater off the coast of Mexico and, theoretically, killed the dinosaurs. Countering the prevailing asteroid theory, the Harvard astronomers think a comet from the fringes of our solar system got knocked off-orbit by Jupiters gravitational field and broke into chunks. Then an especially large chunk the eventual Chicxulub Impactor slammed into the Earth, wreaking major havoc and wiping out the dinos.

More than 60 million years after the dinosaurs, mammoths were living large, which researchers know because of the extensive fossil record. This year, such fossils yielded an unprecedented discovery: the oldest ancient animal genome ever recovered. In sequencing DNA from three mammoth teeth extracted from the Siberian permafrost, scientists determined the fossils were more than one million years old, obliterating the previous record held by a 560,000-to-780,000-year-old horse leg bone. The DNA also suggests a separate lineage, possibly a different species, of mammoth that scientists werent aware of before.

An international event thats been decades in the making is finally (hopefully!) happening on December 24*. After multiple delays, the James Webb Space Telescope the largest and most advanced scientific telescope in the history of space exploration is scheduled to blast off from French Guiana aboard the Ariane 5 rocket. It will take 30 days to travel nearly 1 million miles to a stable spot in space and another six months to unfold its instruments, align, and calibrate. As it tracks Earths orbit around the sun for the next several decades, the infrared scope will directly observe parts of the universe previously unseeable, thereby demystifying the origin and evolution of our planet, solar system, and galaxies beyond.

One of the biggest differences between the COVID pandemic and that of the 1918 Spanish Flu is the way that we track it. Its nearly unimaginable that we once had to follow death and infection rates by local tally and had essentially no way of knowing about new viral variants. Now, led by the WHO, scientists have a colossal global collaboration to monitor the spread and evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Huge amounts of data have been collected and shared across borders, allowing researchers to get quickly gain an idea of how a variant like Omicron spreads and affects case numbers and hospitalizations. We didnt have this sort of technology available at the beginning of the pandemic. As of April 2021, the online GISAID database contained only one million SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences. Thats after about 16 months of pandemic. But in the eight months since, another five million sequences have been added. In other words, genomic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 has gotten ten times faster since the spring. This accomplishment highlights that one of the biggest challenges of science isnt discovery, but sharing discoveries, and countries across the world are now doing that in a way theyve never done before.

What takes todays best supercomputers several days or weeks to process, quantum computers can knock out within seconds. Thats why quantum computing, which leverages the laws of quantum physics for unprecedented processing capabilities, is already considered among the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the 21st century. Eventually, its supposed to revolutionize manufacturing, meteorology, cybersecurity, national defense, and much more.

Well, 2021 made eventually closer than ever. In November, IBM unveiled its 127-qubit Eagle, the most powerful quantum processor yet. Then earlier this month, the company Quantinuum debuted the worlds first commercial product built from quantum computing: a cloud-based cybersecurity platform called Quantum Origin. With the worlds top tech companies and research institutions racing to advance this next-gen technology, expect quantum computing to make our list again next year, and the next, and the next

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15 Truly Unbelievable Ways Science Changed the World in 2021 - Fatherly

Let's look at example that shows how quantum computers can succeed where classical computers fail:

A supercomputer might be great at difficult tasks like sorting through a big database of protein sequences. But it will struggle to see the subtle patterns in that data that determine how those proteins behave.

Proteins are long strings of amino acids that become useful biological machines when they fold into complex shapes. Figuring out how proteins will fold is a problem with important implications for biology and medicine.

A classical supercomputer might try to fold a protein with brute force, leveraging its many processors to check every possible way of bending the chemical chain before arriving at an answer. But as the protein sequences get longer and more complex, the supercomputer stalls. A chain of 100 amino acids could theoretically fold in any one of many trillions of ways. No computer has the working memory to handle all the possible combinations of individual folds.

Quantum algorithms take a new approach to these sorts of complex problems -- creating multidimensional spaces where the patterns linking individual data points emerge. In the case of a protein folding problem, that pattern might be the combination of folds requiring the least energy to produce. That combination of folds is the solution to the problem.

Classical computers can not create these computational spaces, so they can not find these patterns. In the case of proteins, there are already early quantum algorithms that can find folding patterns in entirely new, more efficient ways, without the laborious checking procedures of classical computers. As quantum hardware scales and these algorithms advance, they could tackle protein folding problems too complex for any supercomputer.

How complexity stumps supercomputers

Proteins are long strings of amino acids that become useful biological machines when they fold into complex shapes. Figuring out how proteins will fold is a problem with important implications for biology and medicine.

A classical supercomputer might try to fold a protein with brute force, leveraging its many processors to check every possible way of bending the chemical chain before arriving at an answer. But as the protein sequences get longer and more complex, the supercomputer stalls. A chain of 100 amino acids could theoretically fold in any one of many trillions of ways. No computer has the working memory to handle all the possible combinations of individual folds.

Quantum computers are built for complexityQuantum algorithms take a new approach to these sorts of complex problems -- creating multidimensional spaces where the patterns linking individual data points emerge. Classical computers can not create these computational spaces, so they can not find these patterns. In the case of proteins, there are already early quantum algorithms that can find folding patterns in entirely new, more efficient ways, without the laborious checking procedures of classical computers. As quantum hardware scales and these algorithms advance, they could tackle protein folding problems too complex for any supercomputer.

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What is Quantum Computing? | IBM

Dec. 17, 2021 Researchers at QuTecha collaboration between the TU Delft and TNOhave reached a milestone in quantum error correction. They have integrated high-fidelity operations on encoded quantum data with a scalable scheme for repeated data stabilization. The researchers report their findings in the December issue of Nature Physics.

More Qubits

Physical quantum bits, or qubits, are vulnerable to errors. These errors arise from various sources, includingquantum decoherence, crosstalk, and imperfect calibration. Fortunately, the theory ofquantum error correctionstipulates the possibility to compute while synchronously protecting quantum data from such errors.

Two capabilities will distinguish an error corrected quantum computer from present-day noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) processors, says Prof Leonardo DiCarlo of QuTech. First, it will process quantum information encoded in logical qubits rather than in physical qubits (each logicalqubitconsisting of many physical qubits). Second, it will use quantum parity checks interleaved with computation steps to identify and correct errors occurring in the physical qubits, safeguarding the encoded information as it is being processed. According to theory, the logical error rate can be exponentially suppressed provided that the incidence of physical errors is below a threshold and the circuits for logical operations and stabilization are fault tolerant.

All the Operations

The basic idea thus is that if you increase the redundancy and use more and more qubits to encode data, the net error goes down. The researchers at TU Delft, together with colleagues at TNO, have now realized a major step toward this goal, realizing a logical qubit consisting of seven physical qubits (superconducting transmons). We show that we can do all the operations required for computation with the encoded information. This integration of high-fidelity logical operations with a scalable scheme for repeated stabilization is a key step in quantum error correction, says Prof Barbara Terhal, also of QuTech.

First author and Ph.D. candidate Jorge Marques further explains, Until now researchers have encoded and stabilized. We now show that we can compute as well. This is what a fault-tolerant computer must ultimately do: process and protect data from errors all at the same time. We do three types of logical-qubit operations: initializing the logical qubit in any state, transforming it with gates, and measuring it. We show that all operations can be done directly on encoded information. For each type, we observe higher performance for fault-tolerant variants over non-fault-tolerant variants. Fault-tolerant operations are key to reducing the build-up of physical-qubit errors into logical-qubit errors.

Long Term

DiCarlo emphasizes the multidisciplinary nature of the work: This is a combined effort of experimental physics, theoretical physics from Barbara Terhals group, and also electronics developed with TNO and external collaborators. The project is mainly funded by IARPA and Intel Corporation.

Our grand goal is to show that as we increase encoding redundancy, the neterrorrate actually decreases exponentially, DiCarlo concludes. Our current focus is on 17 physical qubits and next up will be 49. All layers of our quantum computers architecture were designed to allow this scaling.

More information:J. F. Marques et al, Logical-qubit operations in an error-detecting surface code,Nature Physics(2021).DOI: 10.1038/s41567-021-01423-9.

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Research Team Reaches Milestone in Quantum Computing with Error Correction - HPCwire

The University of Bristols pioneering Smart Internet Lab will work with industry partners to develop the first blueprint for a quantum data centre, as part of UKRIs 170 million pound Commercialising Quantum Technologies Challenge.

Quantum technologies, in the form of quantum computing and communications, promise to provide solutions to some of the worlds most challenging problems. However, to date, very little has been understood from a systems perspective about how to integrate them with existing data centres.

The Quantum Data Centre of the Future project will commence in early 2022, bringing experts in classical data centres and networking together with experts in quantum computing and quantum communications, to develop the first blueprint for a quantum data centre.

The project will leverage the significant research strengths of the University of BristolsHigh Performance Networks Groupin classical data centre, quantum Internet and quantum networking.

Professor Reza Nejabati, Head of High Performance Networks Research Group in theSmart Internet Lab, said: This is a truly exciting initiative. Adapting quantum computing and network systems to work in a data centre settingwill require significant acts of invention and creativity.

This will bring a more practical light to the field of quantum technologies so they can benefit businesses and support the emergence of new type quantum computing algorithms and applicationsthat will benefit from them far into the future.

Professor Dimitra Simeonidou, Director of Smart Internet Lab, added: In collaboration with the project partners, we aim to design, develop and demonstrate a solution for integrating a quantum computer in a classical data centre as well as providing remote quantum secure access to quantum computers at scale and in a data centre setting.

Quantum computers and communications systems are often described in isolation, but this misses the possibility for near term value to be created with quantum/classical hybrid systems. In this project, we will be investigating system-level solutions for optical metro quantum networks supporting remote access to quantum computing.

We are really excited to work with leading industrial and academic partners to connect and integrate our city scale test-bed to remote quantum accelerated data canter and demonstrate its use for future industrial applications.

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Smart Internet Lab will deliver Quantum Data Centre of the Future - ITP.net

Quantum computing is a fundamentally different approach to computation compared to the kinds of calculations that we do on todays laptops.

The digital revolution highlights the need for awareness of quantum technologies. The world is now preparing for further digital transformation with a revolution in quantum technology. The countries that authorize quantum computing technology will command over the information processing space for a long period giving them control and influence over sectors such as modern manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, the digital economy, logistics, national security, and intelligence. Quantum computing is a fundamentally different approach to computation compared with the kinds of calculations that we do on todays laptops, workstations, and mainframes. It wont replace these devices, but by leveraging the principles of quantum physics it will solve specific, typically very complex problems of a statistical nature that are difficult for current computers. Heres the list of the top quantum computing moments to remember from 2021.

The pharmaceutical industry has started reaping the benefits of quantum computers to create a change in the existing process of drug discovery and drug development. This industry needs a hefty budget for R&D and quantum computing can help in enhancing the R&D process within a short period. The pharmaceutical industry deals with different molecular formulations and this cutting-edge technology in quantum computing is the best-suited tech after artificial intelligence. Quantum computers tend to predict and simulate molecular structures, patterns, behaviours and properties more efficiently than the traditional computers used in the labs. These quantum computers are more powerful and bring the entire process at an atomic level to add more value to drug discovery and drug development across the world.

Quantum computing and quantum mechanics can solve enormous problems. Due to the data set utilized, topological analysis, an area of study where geometric forms act in certain ways, explains calculations that are just unachievable with todays ordinary computers. This can be reduced to very basic computations using quantum computing. NASA is exploring using quantum computing to examine the vast amounts of data it collects about the universe and to build better and safer space flight methods.

Advanced cryptography is the most prevalent use of quantum computing. Encryption that employs very big prime number factoring (300+ integers) is impossible to break with todays machines. This decryption might become easy with quantum computers, resulting in far greater protection of our digital lives and possessions. However, well be able to crack conventional encryption considerably more quickly as well.

Finding patterns in data and utilizing them to forecast future trends is extremely beneficial. Volkswagen is investigating how quantum computing may be used to notify drivers 45 minutes ahead of time of traffic conditions. Quantum computers will make it feasible to match traffic patterns and anticipate the behaviour of a system as complicated as todays traffic.

Quantum technology has the potential to enable far more sophisticated computer simulations, such as in aviation settings. The time and cost savings associated with assisting in the routing and scheduling of aircraft are considerable. Large businesses such as Airbus and Lockheed Martin are aggressively exploring and investing in the sector to take advantage of the technologys computational power and optimization possibilities.

One possible means of quantum communication is quantum teleportation. Although the name can be misleading, quantum teleportation is not a form of the transport of physical objects but a form of communication. This teleportation is the process of transporting a qubit from one location to another without having to transport the physical particle to which that qubit is attached. Even quantum teleportation depends on the traditional communication network, making it impossible to exceed the speed of light.

It is one of the most discussed forecasts that artificial intelligence and quantum computing can benefit each other by enhancing each others abilities. applications of artificial intelligence like machine learning, computer vision will be accelerated if run on quantum systems. This will mean faster analysis of data in sectors like fraud detection, drug compound discovery and more. It will also boost Generative AI by expanding the datasets used to train generative or machine learning models.

The supply chain is expected to be the first area where quantum computing will have an influence. If Covid-19 taught us anything, its that global production networks are inherently complex and risky. Companies will be able to manage supply networks with fewer disruptions because of quantum computing.

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The Quantum Moments: Top Quantum Computing Things to Recall from 2021 - Analytics Insight