1981 in science

Biology

• September – Pantanal Matogrossense National Park designated in Brazil.
• Publication of Stephen Jay Gould's critique of biological determinism, The Mismeasure of Man, in the United States.

Chemistry

• A German research team led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt bombard a target of bismuth-209 with accelerated nuclei of chromium-54 to produce 5 atoms of the isotope bohrium-262

Computer science

• March 5 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research, going on to sell over 1.5 million units worldwide.
• April 3 – The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
• July 9 – Nintendo releases the arcade game Donkey Kong featuring the debut of Mario.
• August 12 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
• September 12 – The Chaos Computer Club, a European association of hackers, is established in Berlin by Wau Holland and others.

Mathematics

• Alexander Merkurjev proves the norm residue isomorphism theorem for the case and.

Medicine

• April 26 – Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco, performs the world's first human open fetal surgery.
• June 5 – AIDS pandemic begins when the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an unusual cluster of Pneumocystis pneumonia in five homosexual men in Los Angeles.
• Bruce Reitz leads the team that performs the first successful heart–lung transplant on Mary Gohlke at Stanford Hospital.
• LeCompte maneuver first performed.
• English psychiatrist Lorna Wing introduces the term "Asperger syndrome".

Space exploration

• April 12 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle: Columbia launches on the STS-1 mission.
• October 6 – UoSAT-1, the first modern microsatellite, is launched into Low Earth orbit.

Technology

• July 7 – Electric aircraft Solar Challenger, designed by an American team led by Paul MacCready and piloted by Stephen Ptacek, makes a 163-mile crossing of the English Channel using only solar power from wing-mounted photovoltaic 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 in Kansas City, Missouri to collapse, killing 114.

Awards

• 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

Deaths

• January 5
• * Frederick Osborn, American philanthropist and eugenicist.
• * Harold Urey, American winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• February 26 – Jennie Smillie Robertson, Canadian gynecological surgeon.
• March 8 – Joseph Henry Woodger, British theoretical biologist
• March 9 – Max Delbrück, German biologist.
• March 11 – Kazimierz Kordylewski, Polish astronomer.
• March 23 – Beatrice Tinsley, English astronomer.
• April 3 – Leo Kanner, Austrian American clinical child psychiatrist.
• May 11 – Odd Hassel, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• July 4 - Niels Erik Nørlund, Danish mathematician.
• July 27 – Elizabeth Rona, Hungarian American nuclear chemist.
• July 31 – Ernest Melville DuPorte, Black Canadian insect morphologist.
• September 8 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 9 – Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst.
• November 15 – Walter Heitler, German physicist

• November 17
• * Wilhelm Pelikan, Austrian chemist.
• * Sibyl M. Rock, American mathematician.
• November 22 – Hans Krebs, German medical doctor and biochemist; discoverer of the citric acid cycle.
• December 6 – Harry Harlow, American psychologist.