Biologist Konrad E. Bloch and colleagues describe the biosynthesis of cholesterol.

Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser perfects prefabrication and mass production techniques in shipbuilding. His Vancouver, Washington, ship works constructs a 10,500-ton Liberty ship in a record-setting seven and a half days.

Napalm is developed by Harvard scientist Louis F. Fieser for use in U.S. Army flamethrowers.

Jan.

Physicists working on nuclear fission unite to form the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago.

President Roosevelt gives Vannevar Bush approval for the Manhattan Project, a secret, large-scale effort to build an atomic bomb.