The main scientific challenges for the 21st century

Scientists and engineers of this generation have met to pose new challenges that will be the priority for this century. They have emphasized four pillars of maximum importance: sustainability, health, reduction of vulnerability and quality of life. These were the subjects that were brought forth by the worldwide experts convened by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States. The United States NAE has made public a list of which would be the main engineering challenges in the 21st century. Here are the 14 challenges: • Reaching the goal of making solar energy accessible • Supplying energy from fusion • Developing methods for capturing carbon dioxide • Managing nitrogen cycle problems • Supplying access to drinking water • Restoring and improving urban infrastructures • Advancing in computer catalogs in health • Designing better medicines • Reverse-engineering the brain • Preventing nuclear terror • Protecting cyberspace • Enriching virtual reality • Advancing in personalized learning • Designing tools for scientific discovery Within these challenges is human learning and artificial intelligence, which awakens a great interest in the general public. Delving into the functioning of the brain will help the development of artificial intelligence, while at the same time new medicines should be developed to check the expansion of new viruses and dangers of terrorist origin. Also, the consequences of natural disasters will have to be confronted and the infrastructures of cities and services will have to be renovated, preserving the fragile ecological equilibrium. Robert Socolow pointed out that this list has been elaborated in part so that the public could be aware of it and could understand to what point investments in science and engineering can improve human life.