1944 - Science

Science

A paper published February 1 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine helps lay the foundation for molecular biology by revealing the hidden hereditary nature of the threadlike DNA fibers present in all cells (see Levene, 1929). Halifax, N.S.-born Rockefeller Institute bacteriologist Oswald (Theodore) Avery, 66, his Nova Scotia-born colleague Colin M. (Munro) MacLeod, 35, and his South Bend, Ind.-born colleague Maclyn McCarty, 32, prove that DNA rather than a protein or any other substance is what carries hereditary information. Having investigated the phenomenon of transformation, they report that what causes bacteria lacking in capsules to form such capsules is not protein but the genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and that the change is inherited by succeeding generations of the transformed cells (see Watson and Crick, 1953).

British biochemists A. J. P. (Archer John Porter) Martin, 34, and R. L. M. (Richard Laurence Millington) Synge, 29, invent paper partition chromatography, a quick and economical analytical technique that simplifies the separation of closely related chemicals (such as amino acids) for identification and will permit extensive advances in chemical, biological, and medical research.

Biologist Albert Claude publishes the first detailed picture of cell anatomy, having used an electron microscope for his studies (see medicine [cancer virus], 1933).

Soviet nuclear physicist V. I. (Vladmir Iosifovich) Veksler, 37, shows how subatomic particles can be treated in "bunches" and accelerated in orbits that remain stable even during relativistic mass increases (see Lawrence's cyclotron, 1932). Edwin M. McMillan at the University of California, Berkeley, develops an almost identical proposal independently soon afterward, and the new phase stability principle is quickly incorporated into a new generation of particle accelerators—synchrocyclotrons in the United States, synchrophasotrons in the Soviet Union.

New York-born Manhattan Project theoretical physicist Richard P. (Phillips) Feynman, 26, and Hans Bethe at Los Alamos, N.M., devise a formula for predicting the energy yield of a nuclear explosive. The youngest group leader of the project's theoretical division, Feynman proposed an original approach to calculating molecular forces in his MIT undergraduate thesis 5 years ago and in 1942 received his Ph.D. from Princeton, where he developed a "least-action" approach to quantum mechanics, replacing the wave-oriented electromagnetic theory of the late James Clerk Maxwell (see 1873) with one based on calculating all the possible paths that a particle could take from one point to another and mapping the interactions of particles in space and time (see Feynman, Schwinger, 1948).

Dutch astronomy student Hendrik (Christoffel) van de Hulst, 25, makes theoretical studies of hydrogen atoms in space, finds that the magnetic fields of the proton and electron in the hydrogen atom can align in either the same direction or in opposite directions, and calculates that a hydrogen atom will realign itself every 10 million years or so, emitting a radio wave with a 21-centimeter wavelength. Hulst's calculations will prove valuable in mapping the Milky Way Galaxy and provide the basis for early developments in radio astronomy.

Dutch-born U.S. astronomer Gerard P. (Peter) Kuiper, 38, at the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory confirms the presence of a methane atmosphere around Saturn's moon Titan. He will predict correctly 4 years hence that carbon dioxide is a major component of the Martian atmosphere (see 1956).

Dutch chemist Ernst J. Cohen dies at Auschwitz March 5 (approximate) at age 75, having done extensive research in piezochemistry, electrochemical thermodynamics, and the allotropy of metals, notably tin; physicist Charles Glover Barkla dies at Edinburgh October 23 at age 67 (his youngest son was killed in an airplane crash last year while serving as a surgeon for the RAF in North Africa); mathematician George D. Birkhoff dies at Cambridge, Mass., November 12 at age 60; astronomer Sir Arthur S. Eddington at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, November 22 at age 71.