While 2012 was obviously a great year for sport - and not so much the economy - it was also a surprisingly strong 12 months for science.
Not only did researchers make huge headlines with dramatic breakthroughs including the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the landing of the Mars Rover Curiosity and the death-defying leap of Felix Baumgartner, there were also dozens of huge landmark achievements that went relatively unacknowledged.
Whether it was progress made in the field of teleportation and invisibility, or genuinely transformative discoveries about our Solar System and the structure of deep space, there was no field of science that was not changed in 2012.
As with any 'best of' list, ours is to some extent subjective. But we've gone ahead and picked 12 stories from the world of science and tech that we think were among the most dramatic in 2012.
Take a look below, but let us know if we've missed any obvious highlights in the comments, and we'll do a follow-up before the new year.