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.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge working with the Weizmann Institute have created primordial germ cells – cells that will go on to become egg and sperm – using human embryonic stem cells. Although this had already been done using rodent stem cells, the study, published Dec. 24 in the journal Cell, is the first time this has been achieved efficiently using human stem cells.

Ames Laboratory scientists use genetic markers to discover the rhizosphere.

It was the yellow color of the solution, pulled from cauliflower, that set Frederick Crane’s hallmark achievement into its final motion.

‘Zombie’ method also hardens biostructures for mass production.

As proof-of-principle, model provides insight into HIV structure.

A Creighton University physicist was part of an international team which explored the process involved in how cells combat bacterial infection and discovered new capabilities of cells fighting an infection. The team’s research was published Nov. 24, 2014, in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

A novel looping mechanism that involves the end caps of DNA may help explain the aging of cells and how they initiate and transmit disease, according to new research from UT Southwestern Medical Center cell biologists.

Virginia Tech researchers prove mathematical models can predict cellular processes.

Scientists have described a way to convert human skin cells directly into a specific type of brain cell affected by Huntington’s disease, an ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Unlike other techniques that turn one cell type into another, this new process does not pass through a stem cell phase, avoiding the production of multiple cell types, the study’s authors report.