In the past year, China has made many advances and breakthroughs in science and technology, as well as significant progress in quantum computing. For example, China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) officially opened to the world for observation applications, and the world's first artificial method of synthesizing starch from carbon dioxide was developed.

These are just a couple of the 10 of the major scientific and technological breakthroughs in China in 2021 recently rounded up by Science and Technology Daily. Among them, four of the breakthroughs were made in Hefei, east China's Anhui province, which demonstrates the city's strong scientific and technological innovation capacity.

Below are the top 10 discoveries. 

# Wild allotetraploid rice

A breakthrough has been made in creating novel crops through de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice, which can boost future crop production.

The research, published online in Cell in February, was made by a group the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences headed by professor Li Jiayang. 

After professor Li launched the strategy for de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice to create a novel polyploid rice crop, his research proved that the proposed strategy is practical and that the de novo domesticated allotetraploid rice can be developed into a new staple cereal to strengthen food security.