Editing 1944 in science

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{{Year nav topic5|1944|science}}
{{Science year nav|1944}}

The year '''1944 in [[science]]''' and [[technology]] involved some significant events, listed below.

==Astronomy==
* [[Hendrik van de Hulst]] predicts the 21&nbsp;cm hyperfine line of neutral interstellar [[hydrogen]].

==Biology==
* February 1 – [[Oswald Theodore Avery|Oswald T. Avery]] and colleagues publish the [[Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment]]<ref>{{cite journal|title=Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of TransFormation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III|last1=Avery|first1=Oswald T.|last2=MacLeod|first2=Colin M.|last3=McCarty|first3=Maclyn|journal=[[Journal of Experimental Medicine]]|date=1944-02-01|volume=79|publisher=Rockefeller University Press|pages=137–158|pmid=19871359|pmc=2135445|doi=10.1084/jem.79.2.137|issue=2}} (Received for publication 1 November 1943.){{Open access}}</ref> showing that a [[DNA]] molecule can carry an inheritable trait to a living organism. This is important because many biologists thought that [[protein]]s were the hereditary material and [[nucleic acid]]s too simple chemically to serve as genetic storage molecules.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fruton|first=Joseph S.|title=Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: the interplay of chemistry and biology|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven, Conn|year=1999|isbn=0-300-07608-8|pages=438–440}}</ref>
* The [[lipopolysaccharide]] character of enteric endotoxins is elucidated by M. J. Shear.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Shear|first=M. J.|year=1944|title=Chemical treatment of tumors, IX: Reactions of mice with primary subcutaneous tumors to injection of a hemorrhage-producing bacterial polysaccharide|journal=[[Journal of the National Cancer Institute]]|volume=4|issue=5|pages=461–76|doi=10.1093/jnci/4.5.461}}</ref>
* [[Erwin Schrödinger]] publishes ''[[What is Life?]]'', containing conceptual discussion of the [[genetic code]] and of [[negentropy]].
* [[Donald Griffin]] with [[G. W. Pierce]] demonstrate that [[bat]]s use [[high-frequency]] sound in a technique which Griffin describes as [[Animal echolocation|echolocation]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Yoon|first=Carol Kaesuk|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/nyregion/donald-r-griffin-88-dies-argued-animals-can-think.html|title=Donald R. Griffin, 88, Dies; Argued Animals Can Think|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=2003-11-14|access-date=2010-07-16}}</ref>
* Last known evidence for existence of the Asiatic [[lion]] in the wild in [[Iran]] ([[Khuzestan province]]).<ref>{{cite book|last=Guggisberg|first=Charles Albert Walter|title=Simba: the life of the lion|year=1961|publisher=Howard Timmins|location=Cape Town}}</ref>

==Chemistry==
* February – [[Lars Onsager]] publishes the exact solution to the two-dimensional Ising model.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Crystal Statistics. I. A Two-Dimensional Model with an Order-Disorder Transition|journal=[[Physical Review]]|volume=65|pages=117–149|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.65.117|bibcode=1944PhRv...65..117O|year=1944|last1=Onsager|first1=Lars|issue=3–4}}</ref>
* [[Americium]] discovered by [[Glenn T. Seaborg]], ''et al.''

==Computer science==
* August 7 – [[IBM]] dedicates the first program-controlled [[calculator]], the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, best known as the [[Harvard Mark I]].

==Geology==
* March 18 – Last eruption of [[Mount Vesuvius]].

==History of science==
* November 4 – The [[Whipple Museum of the History of Science]] is established when [[Robert Stewart Whipple|Robert Whipple]] presents his collection of scientific instruments to the [[University of Cambridge]], England.
* [[C. Doris Hellman]] publishes her [[Columbia University]] thesis ''The Comet of 1577: Its Place in the History of Astronomy''.

==Mathematics==
* [[John von Neumann]] and [[Oskar Morgenstern]]'s book ''[[Theory of Games and Economic Behavior]]'' is published by [[Princeton University Press]].

==Medicine==
* November 19 – [[Minnesota Starvation Experiment]] begins.
* [[Hans Asperger]] describes [[Asperger syndrome]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Asperger|first=H.|orig-year=1944|chapter='Autistic psychopathy' in childhood|editor=Frith, Uta|title=Autism and Asperger Syndrome|url=https://archive.org/details/autismaspergersy00frit|url-access=limited|year=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-38448-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/autismaspergersy00frit/page/n46 37]–92}}</ref>
* [[David S. Sheridan]] invents the disposable plastic [[tracheal tube]] [[catheter]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Inventor: the Dave Sheridan Story|first=W. C.|last=Heinz|year=1988|publisher=[[Albany Medical Center]]|location=Albany, New York}}</ref>
* [[Dorothea Leighton|Dorothea]] and Alexander Leighton's book ''Navajo at the Door'' is "the earliest example of applied [[medical anthropology]]".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Peoples|first1=James|last2=Bailey|first2=Garrick|title=Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pucbCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT410|year=2014|publisher=Cengage|isbn=9781285733371|page=410}}</ref>

==Meteorology==
* June 5 – [[Group Captain]] [[James Stagg]] correctly forecasts a brief improvement in weather conditions over the [[English Channel]] which permits the following day's [[Normandy landings]] to take place.
* August 6 – [[Ball lightning]] observed in [[Uppsala]], Sweden.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hvi.uu.se/Lightning/blixtar/Klotblixt.html|language=sv|publisher=Uppsala University|title=Ett fenomen som gäckar vetenskapen|first=Anders|last=Larsson|date=2002-04-23|access-date=2016-01-05}}</ref>

==Physics==
* November 6 – [[Hanford Site]] in [[Washington (state)]] produces its first [[plutonium]].

==Technology==
* March 27 – In Sweden, [[Ruben Rausing]] [[patent]]s [[Erik Wallenberg]]'s method of packaging milk in paper, origin of the company [[Tetra Pak]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Sedig|first=Kjell|year=2002|title=Swedish Innovations|location=Stockholm|publisher=The Swedish Institute|page=45|isbn=91-520-0910-6}}</ref>
* June 13 – First operational use of the German [[V-1 flying bomb]], the first operational [[cruise missile]], containing a gyroscope guidance system and propelled by a simple [[pulsejet]] engine.
* September 8 – First operational use of the German [[V-2 rocket]], the first [[ballistic missile]]. On June 20 one has become the first man-made object to cross the [[Kármán line]] and reach the edge of space.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780029228951|url-access=registration|last=Neufeld|first=Michael J.|publisher=The Free Press|year=1995|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780029228951/page/158 158], 160–162, 190}}</ref>
* December 9 – First flight of the [[Heinkel He 162]] ''Volksjäger'', the second jet engined fighter aircraft to be introduced by the [[Luftwaffe]] in World War II.
* First operational use of a [[Submarine snorkel|snorkel]] on a [[submarine]].

==Awards==
* [[Nobel Prize]]s
** [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Physics]] – [[Isidor Isaac Rabi]]
** [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry|Chemistry]] – [[Otto Hahn]]<ref>{{cite web |title=6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190903184929/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130519-women-scientists-overlooked-dna-history-science/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 3, 2019 |website=National Geographic News |access-date=19 January 2021 |date=19 May 2013}}</ref>
** [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine|Medicine]] – [[Joseph Erlanger]], [[Herbert Spencer Gasser]]

==Births==
* February 8 – [[Howard Dalton]] (died [[2008 in science|2008]]), English [[microbiologist]].
* February 15 – [[Sigurd Hofmann]], German [[physicist]].
* March 7 – [[Michael Rosbash]], American [[geneticist]] and [[chronobiologist]], recipient of the [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]].
* June 1 – [[Colin Blakemore]], English [[neurobiologist]] (died [[2022 in science|2022]]).
* June 5 – [[Whitfield Diffie]], American [[cryptographer]].
* June 6 – [[Phillip Allen Sharp]], American [[geneticist]] and [[molecular biologist]], recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
* June 22 – [[Gérard Mourou]], French electrical engineer, recipient of the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]].
* July 13 – [[Ernő Rubik]], Hungarian inventor and architect.
* August 24 – [[Gregory Jarvis]] (died [[1986 in science|1986]]), American [[astronaut]].
* October 11 – [[William T. Greenough]] (died [[2013 in science|2013]]), American neuroscientist. 
* October 16 – [[Elizabeth Loftus]], American [[psychologist]].
* October 21 – [[Jean-Pierre Sauvage]], French [[Coordination chemistry|coordination chemist]], recipient of the [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]].
* December 19 – [[Richard Leakey]] (died [[2022 in science|2022]]), Kenyan palaeoanthropologist.
* December 28 – [[Kary Mullis]] (died [[2019 in science|2019]]), American [[biochemist]], recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

==Deaths==
* January 19 – [[Emily Winifred Dickson]] (born [[1866 in science|1866]]), British [[gynaecologist]].<ref>{{cite journal|date=March 1944|title=Emily Winifred Dickson Martin|journal=The Lancet|volume=243|issue=6288|page=327|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(00)42291-9}}</ref>
* January 20 – [[James McKeen Cattell]] (born [[1860 in science|1860]]), American psychologist.
* February 8 – [[Bernard Sachs]] (born [[1858 in science|1858]]), American [[neurologist]].
* March – [[John R.&nbsp;F. Jeffreys]] (born [[1918 in science|1918]]), British mathematician and [[cryptanalysis]]t (tuberculosis).
* March 2 – [[Ida Maclean]] (born [[1877 in science|1877]]), English [[biochemist]].
* March 5 – [[Ernst Cohen]] (born [[1869 in science|1869]]), [[Netherlands|Dutch]] [[Jew]]ish [[chemist]] (in [[Auschwitz concentration camp]]).
* March 29 – [[Grace Chisholm Young]] (born [[1868 in science|1868]]), English [[mathematician]].
* April 16 – [[Percy Lane Oliver]] (born [[1878 in science|1878]]), [[British people|British]] pioneer of voluntary [[blood donation]]
* August 23 – [[Margarete Zuelzer]] (born [[1877 in science|1877]]), German Jewish [[microbiologist]] (in [[Westerbork transit camp]]).
* June 18 – [[Harry Fielding Reid]] (born [[1859 in science|1859]]), American [[geophysicist]].
* July 25 – [[Jakob Johann von Uexküll]] (born [[1864 in science|1864]]), Baltic German pioneer of [[biosemiotics]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Carlo|last=Brentari|title=Jakob von Uexküll: The Discovery of the Umwelt between Biosemiotics and Theoretical Biology|publisher=Springer|year=2015}}</ref>
* November 2 – [[Thomas Midgley Jr.]] (born [[1889 in science|1889]]), American chemist and inventor.
* November 22 – Sir [[Arthur Eddington]] (born [[1882 in science|1882]]), English [[astrophysicist]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

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