Ruđer Bošković publishes his
atomic theory in Philosophiæ naturalis theoria redacta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium ("Theory of natural philosophy reduced to one law of the forces existing in nature").[4]
January 1 – Swedish biologist
Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (Animalia) of the
10th edition of Systema Naturae, the starting point of modern
zoological nomenclature, introducing
binomial nomenclature for animals to his established system of
Linnaean taxonomy.[6] Among the first examples of his system of identifying an organism by genus and then species, Linnaeus identifies the
lamprey with the name Petromyzon marinus.[7] He introduces the term Homo sapiens. (Date of January 1 assigned retrospectively.)[8]
^Enders, J. F. (December 1961 – February 1962). "Vaccination against measles: Francis Home redivivus". Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 34: 239–60.