The scientific community has called for global cooperation to meet scientific challenges at the first World Science and Technology Development Forum held October 16th in Beijing, China, Xinhua reports.

"It has been proved by practice that the sustainable development of mankind cannot be solved independently by any country or organization," Cai Ronggen, academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said at the forum. It must be achieved through global cooperation, he added.

Scientists from more than 10 countries and regions, including China, the United States, Britain and Canada, selected the "top 10 scientific challenges critical to human society development for 2019" from the issues proposed by global editorial board members of well-known scientific journals and scientists.

The top 10 were released at the forum, mainly focusing on health, the environment and energy.

Challenges on health include preventing and controlling the mass outbreak of emerging infectious diseases, identifying the impacts of social change on people's physical and mental health, making accurate and comprehensive predictions of human diseases in the future, and developing new technologies for the early diagnosis and prognosis monitoring of cancer.

The three challenges about the environment are continuing to develop within safe planetary boundaries, effectively addressing transboundary pollution of air, water and soil, and achieving complete purification of wastewater.

The rest of the challenges concern energy: solving future energy problems through controlled nuclear fusion, efficiently transforming and storing new energy, and achieving an equal balance of energy-water-food supply in large cities.

"Global challenges need global solutions," Cai said. He called on scientists from all over the world to work together to meet the challenges and seek scientific solutions, especially concerning the climate, air, water, soil and sea.

(Taken from Xinhua)