# 1943 in science

The year 1943 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

## Biology

* July 21 – Living specimens of Metasequoia glyptostroboides, the Dawn Redwood, previously known only as a Mesozoic fossil, are located in China.
* The University of Oxford acquires the nearby Wytham Woods which become an important centre for research into ecology in England.
* David Lack's study The Life of the Robin is published in England.

## Computer science

* March–December – Construction of British prototype Mark I Colossus computer, the world's first totally electronic programmable computing device, at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, to assist in cryptanalysis at Bletchley Park.
* May 17 – The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.

## Earth sciences

* February 20 – The cinder cone volcano Parícutin begins to appear in Mexico, giving volcanologists an unusual opportunity to observe its complete life cycle.

## Nuclear physics

* January 1 – Project Y, the Manhattan Project's secret laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for development and production of the first atomic bombs under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer, begins operations.

## Pharmacology

* March 23 – The drugs Vicodin and Lortab are made in Germany.
* October 19 – The antibiotic streptomycin (the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis) is first isolated by Albert Schatz in the laboratory of Selman Abraham Waksman at Rutgers University in the United States.
* December – Winston Churchill's recurring bacterial pneumonia is successfully treated with the sulphapyridine M&B 693, a first-generation sulphonamide antibiotic.
* A golden mould, Penicillium chrysogenum, growing on an American cantaloupe in Peoria, Illinois, is found to be ideal for mass production of penicillin.

## Psychology

* Abraham Maslow proposes the Hierarchy of Needs theory of psychology in his paper "A Theory of Human Motivation".

## Physiology and medicine

* April 16–19 – Albert Hofmann discovers the hallucinogenic properties of lysergic acid diethylamide.
* Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital first publicly adopts the term autism in its modern sense in English in referring to early infantile autism.
* Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts publish "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" in Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, considered seminal in neural network theory.
* Dr. Willem J. Kolff builds the first dialysis machine, in the occupied Netherlands.
* New Zealand-born British anaesthetist Robert Macintosh introduces his new curved laryngoscope blade for tracheal intubation.

## Technology

* March 5 – The Gloster Meteor, the first operational military jet aircraft for the Allies of World War II, has its first test flight, in England.
* May 16–17 – Operation Chastise: British Royal Air Force attacks German dams using 'bouncing bombs' designed by Barnes Wallis.
* Lyle Goodhue and William Sullivan patent the refillable aerosol spray in the United States, for use with mosquito–repellant.
* Krueger flaps for aircraft wings are invented by Werner Krüger and evaluated in the wind tunnels in Göttingen.

## Awards

* Nobel Prizes
** Physics – Otto Stern
** Chemistry – George de Hevesy
** Medicine – Carl Peter Henrik Dam, Edward Adelbert Doisy

## Births

* January 14 – Ralph Steinman (died 2011), Canadian-born cell biologist, awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2011).
* April 26 – Christiane Floyd, Austrian-born computer scientist.
* May 9 – Colin Pillinger (died 2014), English astrophysicist.
* May 14 – Richard Peto, English epidemiologist.
* June 6 – Richard Smalley (died 2005), American organic chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1996) for discovery of buckminsterfullerene.
* June 16 – Nancy Doe Hopkins, American molecular biologist and advocate for women in science.
* June 22 – J. Michael Kosterlitz, Scottish-born condensed matter physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (2016).
* June 23 – Vint Cerf, American Internet pioneer.
* July 11 – Hilary Kahn (died 2007), South African-born English computer scientist.
* August 3 – Masato Sagawa, Japanese inventor.
* August 10 – Louis E. Brus, American chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2023).
* August 29 – Arthur B. McDonald, Canadian astrophysicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics (2015).
* September 20 – Richard McGehee, American mathematician working on celestial mechanics.
* December 7 – Nick Katz, American mathematician.
* Mary Lake Polan, American obstetrician and gynecologist.
* Steen Willadsen, Danish-born embryologist.

## Deaths

* January 5 – George Washington Carver (born c.1864), African American agricultural botanist.
* January 7 – Nikola Tesla (born 1856), Serbian American inventor.
* January 24 – Carl Brigham (born 1890), American pioneer of psychometrics.
* January 26 – Nikolai Vavilov (born 1887), Russian plant pathologist (in prison).
* February 14 – David Hilbert (born 1862), German mathematician.
* February 20 – Ernest Guglielminetti (born 1862), Swiss physician
* February 23 – Abraham Buschke (born 1868), German Jewish dermatologist (in Theresienstadt concentration camp).
* March 2 – Gisela Januszewska (born 1867), Austrian public health physician (in Theresienstadt concentration camp).
* March 28 – Robert W. Paul (born 1869), English pioneer of cinematography.
* April 8 – Kiyotsugu Hirayama (born 1874), Japanese astronomer.
* June 26 – Karl Landsteiner (born 1868), Austrian-born American Jewish physiologist.
* July 5 – Charles Gandy (born 1872), French physician.
* July 7 – Hugh Whistler (born 1889), English ornithologist of India.
* September 23 – John Bradfield (born 1867), Australian civil engineer.
* September 30 – Carl Edvard Johansson (born 1864), Swedish metrologist.
* October 1 – Albert Stewart Meek (born 1871), English-born Australian ornithologist.
* November 14 – Frank Leverett (born 1859), American glaciologist.
* November 20 – Bertha Lamme Feicht (born 1869), American electrical engineer.