Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University scientists use x-rays to map internal atomic transformations and advance promising lithium-based batteries.

From new insights into the building blocks of matter to advances in understanding batteries, superconductors, and a protein that could help fight cancer, 2014 was a year of stunning successes for the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. Oh, and did we mention the opening of a brand new facility that will push the limits of discovery across the scientific spectrum? For details on these and the rest of our Top-10 breakthroughs, check out the items below. You can follow Brookhaven Lab on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr to learn about the discoveries of 2015 as they happen.

Rust never sleeps. Whether a reference to the 1979 Neil Young album or a product designed to protect metal surfaces, the phrase invokes the idea that corrosion from oxidation—the more general chemical name for rust and other reactions of metal with oxygen—is an inevitable, persistent process. But a new study performed at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory reveals that certain features of metal surfaces can stop the process of oxidation in its tracks.

Finding gives scientists a new group of materials to explore to unlock secrets of some materials' ability to carry current with no energy loss.

Scientists reveal the atomic-scale structural and electronic degradations that plague some rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and make them vulnerable during high-temperature operations.

The National Synchrotron Light Source II detects its first photons, beginning a new phase of the facility's operations. Scientific experiments at NSLS-II are expected to begin before the end of the year.

Crucial steps and surprising structures revealed in the genesis of the enzyme that divides the DNA double helix during cell replication.

Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University researchers measure the quantum fluctuations behind a novel magnetic material's ultra-cold ferromagnetic phase transition.

"Invisible" particles containing at least one strange quark lower the temperature at which other particles "freeze out" from quark-gluon plasma.

Brookhaven Lab scientists find surprising locked charge polarizations that impede performance in next-gen materials that could otherwise revolutionize data-driven devices.