1972 in science

none 1972 science 1972 The year 1972 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy and space exploration January 5 – President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program. February 4 – Mariner 9 sends pictures from Mars. February 21 – The Soviet uncrewed spacecraft Luna 20 lands on the Moon. March 2 – Launch of Pioneer 10 spacecraft. April 16 – Apollo 16 launched. June 30 – The International Time Bureau adds the first leap second to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). July 23 – The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite. December 7 – Apollo 17 launched with three astronauts and five mice, and The Blue Marble photograph of the Earth is taken. December 11 – NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt land on the Moon and begin a three-day exploration. Biology February – S. J. Singer and Garth L. Nicolson describe the fluid mosaic model of the functional cell membrane.Singer, S. J. Nicolson, G. L. The fluid mosaic model of the structure of cell membranes Science 175 4023 720–31 1972 4333397 10.1126/science.175.4023.720 83851531 September – Geoffrey Burnstock proposes the existence of a non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic (NANC) neurotransmitter, which he identifies as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), originating the term 'purinergic signalling'.Burnstock G. Purinergic nerves Pharmacological Reviews 24 509–81 1972 3 4404211 October 1 – The first publication reporting the production of a recombinant DNA molecule, by Paul Berg and colleagues, marks the birth of modern molecular biology methodology. Jackson David A. Symons Robert H Berg Paul 1972 Biochemical Method for Inserting New Genetic Information into DNA of Simian Virus 40: Circular SV40 DNA Molecules Containing Lambda Phage Genes and the Galactose Operon of Escherichia coli Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 69 10 2904–2909 10.1073/pnas.69.10.2904 4342968 389671 1972PNAS...69.2904J free Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould publish their landmark paper on punctuated equilibrium.Eldredge N. Gould S. J. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism Models in Paleobiology Schopf, T. J. M. 82–115 Freeman, Cooper San Francisco 1972 Socorro doves (Zenaida graysoni) last seen in the wild. The species precariously survives in captivity. A reintroduction program is being prepared. Computer science April 6 – Cray Research founded.Cray Timeline http://www.cray.com/Assets/PDF/about/CrayTimeline.pdf Cray 2011-04-04 2011-03-31 https://web.archive.org/web/20110331035544/http://www.cray.com/Assets/PDF/about/CrayTimeline.pdf May – Magnavox release the first home video game console which can be connected to a television set – the Magnavox Odyssey, invented by Ralph H. Baer.Game Industry Career Guide Moore Michael E. Novak Jeannie 2010 Cengage Learning Delmar 978-1-4283-7647-2 7 In 1966, Ralph H. Baer ... pitched an idea ... to create interactive games to be played on the television. Over the next two years, his team developed the first video game system—and in 1968, they demonstrated the "Brown Box," a device on which several games could be played and that used a light gun to shoot targets on the screen. After several more years of development, the system was licensed by Magnavox in 1970 and the first game console system, the Odyssey, was released in 1972 at the then high price of $100. July 12 – First C compiler released.Ken Thompson Dennis M. Ritchie UNIX Programmer's Manual, Second Edition June 12, 1972 Bell Telephone Laboratories http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/unix/UnixArchive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/1972_stuff/unix_2nd_edition_manual.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20161006034736/http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/unix/UnixArchive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/1972_stuff/unix_2nd_edition_manual.pdf 2016-10-06 October – The First International Conference on Computer Communications is held in Washington, D.C., and hosts the first public demonstration of ARPAnet, a precursor of the Internet. November 29 – Atari release the production version of Pong, one of the first video games, devised by Nolan Bushnell and Allan Alcorn. Karen Spärck Jones introduces the concept of inverse document frequency (idf) weighting in information retrieval.Spärck Jones K. 10.1108/eb026526 A Statistical Interpretation of Term Specificity and Its Application in Retrieval Journal of Documentation 28 11–21 1972 2996187 Write-only memory is devised as a joke in Signetics.Bob Pease The origin of the WOM – the "Write Only Memory" http://portal.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html National Semiconductor 2012-11-11 https://web.archive.org/web/20110910041413/http://portal.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html 2011-09-10 Earth sciences February 8 – First Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) defined at the Silurian-Devonian boundary at Klonk in the Czech Republic.Chlupáč Ivo Hladil Jindrich The global stratotype section and point of the Silurian-Devonian boundary CFS Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg January 2000 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260135817 2020-12-07 Ecology January – A Blueprint for Survival first published as a special edition of The Ecologist magazine in the United Kingdom.http://www.theecologist.org/theecologist/266662/about_the_ecologist.html About The Ecologist The Ecologist 2012-02-10 James Lovelock first refers to the Gaia hypothesis in print.J. E. Lovelock Gaia as seen through the atmosphere August 1972 Atmospheric Environment 6 8 579–580 0004-6981 10.1016/0004-6981(72)90076-5 1972AtmEn...6..579L The Climatic Research Unit is founded by climatologist Hubert Lamb at the University of East Anglia in the UK. Mathematics Daniel Quillen formulates higher algebraic K-theory. Daniel Gorenstein announces a 16-step program for completing the classification of finite simple groups.Gorenstein D. The classification of finite simple groups. I. Simple groups and local analysis 10.1090/S0273-0979-1979-14551-8 1979 Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society New Series 0002-9904 1 1 43–199 513750 free Appendix. Richard M. Karp shows that the Hamiltonian cycle problem is NP-complete. Medicine January 31 – Immunosuppressive effect of ciclosporin discovered by a team at Sandoz, Basel, under Hartmann F. Stähelin. Harvey J. Alter identifies the presence of hepatitis C virus. Tu Youyou and collaborators obtain a pure extract of the antiplasmodial drug artemisinin. Archie Cochrane publishes Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services in the U.K. John Yudkin publishes Pure, White and Deadly in the U.K., warning of the dangers of sucrose in diet. The last major epidemic of smallpox in Europe breaks out in Yugoslavia. Metrology 00:00:00 UTC matches 00:00:10 TAI exactly and the tick rate of UTC is changed to match TAI exactly.Blair Byron E. Time and Frequency: Theory and Fundamentals https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/MONO/nbsmonograph140.pdf National Bureau of Standards 1974 32 Paleontology Kielan-Jawarowska and Rinchen Barsbold report the associated remains of a Velociraptor and Protoceratops apparently killed and preserved while fighting. Psychology Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky begin to publish together on cognitive bias and heuristics in judgment and decision-making. Technology February 1 – The first scientific hand-held calculator (labeled Hewlett-Packard, later designated the HP-35) is introduced, at a price of $395.00. July 10 – Jack Cover files 3803463 for the original form of Taser electroshock weapon. English inventor Peter Powell develops a steerable dual-line kite. Awards Nobel Prizes Physics – John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper, John Robert Schrieffer Chemistry – Christian B. Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, William H. Stein Medicine – Gerald Edelman, Rodney R Porter Turing Award – Edsger Dijkstra Births March 31 – Evan Williams, American Internet entrepreneur. April 5 – Nima Arkani-Hamed, Canadian-American theoretical physicist. June 21 – Warren Lyford DeLano, American bioinformatician and open source advocate (d. 2009). unknown date – Kathy Vivas, Venezuelan astrophysicistGraterol Javier 18 May 2009 La astronomía es una ciencia apasionante El Nacional Deaths February 20 – Maria Goeppert Mayer (b. 1906), German-American theoretical physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. May 4 – Edward Calvin Kendall (b. 1886), American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. May 8 – Beatrice Helen Worsley (b. 1921), Canadian computer scientist. August 11 – Max Theiler (b. 1899), South African-born American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. August 22 – Ștefan Procopiu (b. 18990), Romanian physicist. August 25 – Lucien Bull (b. 1876), Irish-born French pioneer in chronophotography. October 1 – Louis Leakey (b. 1903), British paleoanthropologist. November 25 – Henri Coandă (b. 1886), Romanian aeronautical engineer. References Category:20th century in science Category:1970s in science