The year1981 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.

• September –Pantanal Matogrossense National Park designated inBrazil.
• Publication ofStephen Jay Gould's critique ofbiological determinism,The Mismeasure of Man, in theUnited States.

• A German research team led byPeter Armbruster andGottfried Münzenberg at theGSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) inDarmstadt bombard a target of bismuth-209 with accelerated nuclei of chromium-54 to produce 5 atoms of the isotopebohrium-262

• March 5 – TheZX81, a pioneering Britishhome computer, is launched bySinclair Research, going on to sell over 1.5 million units worldwide.
• April 3 – TheOsborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at theWest Coast Computer Faire inSan Francisco.
• July 9 –Nintendo releases the arcade gameDonkey Kong featuring the debut ofMario.
• August 12 – TheIBM Personal Computer is released.^[1]
• September 12 – TheChaos Computer Club, a European association ofhackers, is established in Berlin byWau Holland and others.

• Alexander Merkurjev proves thenorm residue isomorphism theorem for the casen = 2 andℓ = 2.

• April 26 – Dr.Michael R. Harrison of theUniversity of California, San Francisco, performs the world's first human openfetal surgery.
• June 5 –AIDSpandemic begins when the United StatesCenters for Disease Control and Prevention reports an unusual cluster ofPneumocystis pneumonia in fivehomosexual men inLos Angeles.^[2]
• Bruce Reitz leads the team that performs the first successfulheart–lung transplant on Mary Gohlke atStanford Hospital.^[3]
• LeCompte maneuver first performed.^[4]
• English psychiatristLorna Wing introduces the term "Asperger syndrome".^[5]

• April 12 – The first launch of aSpace Shuttle:Columbia launches on theSTS-1 mission.
• October 6 –UoSAT-1, the first modernmicrosatellite, is launched intoLow Earth orbit.^[6]

• July 7 –Electric aircraftSolar Challenger, designed by anAmerican team led byPaul MacCready and piloted by Stephen Ptacek, makes a 163-mile (262 km) crossing of theEnglish Channel using onlysolar power from wing-mountedphotovoltaic cells.
• July 17 –Hyatt Regency walkway collapse:Structural failure due to a late design change causes two internal suspended walkways at the Hyatt Regency Hotel inKansas City, Missouri to collapse, killing 114.

• 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

• January 5
  • Frederick Osborn (b.1889),Americanphilanthropist andeugenicist.
  • Harold Urey (b.1893), American winner of theNobel Prize in Chemistry.^[7]
• February 26 –Jennie Smillie Robertson (b.1878),Canadiangynecologicalsurgeon.
• March 8 –Joseph Henry Woodger, British theoretical biologist (b.1894)^[8]
• March 9 –Max Delbrück (b.1906),Germanbiologist.^[9]
• April 3 –Leo Kanner (b.1894),Austrian American clinicalchild psychiatrist.
• May 11 –Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b.1897)^[10]
• July 4 -Niels Erik Nørlund (b.1885),Danishmathematician.
• July 27 –Elizabeth Rona (b.1890),Hungarian Americannuclear chemist.
• July 31 –Ernest Melville DuPorte (b.1891),Black Canadianinsect morphologist.
• September 8 –Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist,Nobel Prize laureate (b.1907)^[11]
• September 9 –Jacques Lacan (b.1901), Frenchpsychoanalyst.^[12]
• November 15 –Walter Heitler (b.1904), German physicist
  Fellow of the Royal Society^[13]
• November 17
  • Wilhelm Pelikan (b.1893), Austrian chemist.^[14]
  • Sibyl M. Rock (b.1909), American mathematician.
• November 22 –Hans Krebs (b.1900), Germanmedical doctor andbiochemist; discoverer of thecitric acid cycle.^[15]
• December 6 –Harry Harlow (b.1905), Americanpsychologist.

• 1981 in science
• 20th century in science
• 1980s in science

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