What are Science’s biggest Challenges in the Next Decade?

As we move further into the 2020s, looking around it can feel like a very uncertain time.

Especially for younger generations, the climate crisis is both ongoing right now, and a looming danger over their futures as environmental conditions continue to worsen – as well as the fact that political instability is common, and ever growing populations are putting an exponentially bigger strain on global food supplies, with the eldest in society becoming older and older too.

All of these problems will not just go away if society ignores them, no matter how hard some people may try to push otherwise – meaning that the responsibility for producing the solutions that solve these existential crises eventually falls at the feet of somebody.

Considering that scientists are the brightest, most well-read, and most equipped group of people to deal with the most complex problems that society has to offer, it’s no surprise really that expectations are with them to solve the problems that they themselves have spent decades trying to warn those in power about.

Stopping the Climate Crisis

As touched upon in the introduction, reducing the effects of, or ideally, completely bringing the climate crisis to an end, remains outstanding as the top priority for scientists in the coming decade.

Despite countless warnings from scientific organizations, the planet finds itself in a position where the predicted temperature rises will have catastrophic impacts on the entire ecological system.

While there continues to be a significant amount of study into the damage that has been, and is being done, and raising awareness about this damage, scientists and engineers are working on technologies and systems that will help to reduce carbon emissions, such as self-fertilizing crops, and techniques to restore biodiversity and ecosystem regeneration.

Curing Cancer and Degenerative Diseases

One of the results of the general improvements to the standard of living over the last half century is that people are living longer. As people have more access to healthier food, balanced lifestyles, and public resources such as healthcare and education, they are in a position to live longer and more fulfilling lives.

However, as there are now more aged people than ever before, there has been a large increase in the number of cancer and degenerative disease patients due to the prevalence of them in later life.

Scientists have been working to find cures for these ailments for decades, and the search still goes on. Technology is providing promising ways forward, with detection methods using XRD making diagnostics more effective, and the first successful treatment for Alzheimer’s, Aducanumab, is now approved for use.

Creating new Food Production Methods

The need for new food production methods isn’t just a case of needing more food to feed an exponentially increasing population size, but also is intimately related to the climate crisis and how land is not only deforested and drained of nutrients, but also used extremely inefficiently.

Areas that are considered significant areas of study in this field include catering to the increased demand for vegetarian protein alternatives in environmentally friendly ways, as well as genetically modifying plants to require less resources to produce better or similar yields.