The year 1941 in
science and
technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Biology
George Wells Beadle and
Edward Lawrie Tatum publish "Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora" which shows that specific genes code for specific proteins.[1]
May 12 – German engineer
Konrad Zuse presents the
Z3, the world's first working
programmable,
Turing complete, fully automatic computer, to an audience of aviation engineers in Berlin.
February 12 – Reserve Constable
Albert Alexander, a sepsis patient at the
Radcliffe Infirmary in
Oxford, becomes the first person treated with
penicillin intravenously, by
Howard Florey's team, injected by Dr Charles Fletcher. He reacts positively but there is insufficient supply of the drug to reverse his terminal infection. A successful treatment is achieved during May.[4]
^Mitchell, H. K.; Snell, E. E.; Williams, R. J. (1941). "The concentration of "folic acid"". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 63 (8): 2284.
doi:
10.1021/ja01853a512.
^Robertson, Patrick (1974). The Shell Book of Firsts. London: Ebury Press. pp. 124–5.
^Knobloch, Eberhard (2003). The shoulders on which we stand/Wegbereiter der Wissenschaft (in German and English). Springer. pp. 170–173.
ISBN3-540-20557-8.
^Taylor, Geoffrey (1950). "The formation of a blast wave by a very intense explosion". Proceedings of the Royal Society. A201. London: 159 ff.
JSTOR98395. The report was classified when written.