A computer "worm" unleashed by a Cornell University graduate student, Robert T. Morris, began replicating wildly, clogging thousands of computers around the country. Intended as an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program, Morris soon discovered that the program was infecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated. Computers were affected at many universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. When Morris realized what was happening he sent an anonymous message, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late. Morris, was later tried, fined and given probation.

The DuPont company, of Wilmington, Delaware, announced the first synthetic rubber. It was known as DuPrene, and from 1936 as Neoprene. Many scientists were trying to make natural rubber in the 1920s and 30s. One of the Wallace Carothers team, Gerard Berchet, had left a sample of monovinylacetylene in a jar with hydrochloric acid (HCl) for about five weeks. Then on 17 Apr 1930, coworker Arnold M. Collins happened to look in that jar and found a rubbery white material. The HCl had reacted with the vinylacetylene, making chloroprene, which then polymerized to become polychloroprene. The new rubber was expensive, but resisted oil and gasoline, which natural rubber didn't. It was the first good synthetic rubber.