1981 in science

The year 1981 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.

Biology

• Publication of Stephen Jay Gould's critique of biological determinism, The Mismeasure of Man, in the United States.

Computer science

• August 12 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.^[1]

Medicine

• April 26 - Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco, performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.
• June 5 - AIDS pandemic begins when the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an unusual cluster of Pneumocystis pneumonia in five homosexual men in Los Angeles.^[2]
• Dr. Bruce Reitz performs the first successful heart–lung transplant on Mary Gohlke at Stanford Hospital.

IBM PC 5150

Space exploration

• April 12 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.

Technology

• July 7 – Electric aircraft Solar Challenger, designed by an American team led by Paul MacCready and piloted by Stephen Ptacek, makes a 163 mile (262 km) crossing of the English Channel using only solar power from wing-mounted photovoltaic cells.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Nicolaas Bloembergen, Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Kai M. Siegbahn
  • Chemistry – Kenichi Fukui, Roald Hoffmann
  • Medicine – Roger W. Sperry, David H. Hubel, Torsten N. Wiesel
• Turing Award – Edgar F. Codd

Births

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Deaths

• January 5 – Harold Urey (b. 1893), American winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• March 9 – Max Delbrück (b. 1906), German biologist
• November 22 – Hans Krebs (b. 1900), German medical doctor and biochemist; discoverer of the citric acid cycle
• December 6 – Harry Harlow (b. 1905), American psychologist

References