If you could ask scientists to work on a particular issue, what would that be?

A cure for Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of Dementia.

@Pachy posted my first choice.

After that I would have them tackle Bipolar Disorder

1. Nuclear Fusion.
2. Terraforming and colonisation of Mars.
3. Replicator
4. Warp Drive

I’d like them to work on making St. Jude Children’s Hospital 100% unnecessary.

I can think of nothing I would wish scientists to work on that the scientific community isn’t working on already. The issues I find most important aren’t not being implemented because the work isn’t being done, but rather because of political bullshit/corporate influence.

Cancer and heart issues.

Reducing the effects of climate change is the most urgent issue that needs working on.

While I certainly agree with @janbb about the urgency of working on climate change, I think experts already know much of the science; the challenge is to convince the world to believe the science and start applying it everywhere.

Science should work on creating magic beans and the goose that lays the golden eggs.

@Pachy You’re right – maybe scientists need to work on convincing us there is science!

My brother has done research in labs for both Alzheimer’s disease and Autism. Those ones are very detrimental.

The plight of the honey bees.

Just to add a new one to the excellent list compiled.

Probiotics. They’re so promising but there’s little hard data about how to best manipulate them yet, or even about how we have already inadvertently messed with our own microbiome.

@ibstubro I think they’ve figured out the honeybees; now it’s just implementation.

I’d want them to figure out the immune system and auto-immune disorders.

So many health problems are related to the issue of our bodies attacking our healthy tissues. Allergies, asthma, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis are all auto-immune disorders.

There are suspicions that Alzheimer’s may have an autoimmune component, or at least contributing factor, as well as some forms of developmental disabilities like ADHD and autism.

I agree with @hearkat , now that the auto-immune issues have been brought up I’d agree. I have awful sinus/allergy issues, adrenal fatigue and other auto-immune related annoyances and a good friend with MS/Deviks Syndrome.

Part of the global warming process involves the polar ices. The ice and snow deflect a certain amount of the sun’s rays back to space. With the shrinkage, there is increasingly less of the sun’s rays being deflected. The resulting increased absorbtion speeds the warming of the poles. I would like to see them develope a way to deflect, or harness the sun’s rays at a steady rate to slow the advance of global warming.
Oh, and world peace. (because I like that movie Miss Congeniality)

Since Monsanto is money hungry, find a way to pay them to stop making GMO’s and find a way to reverse the damage they’ve done to the world’s food supply.

To develop the Flashy thing from Men in Black.

I would ask them to work on telling the truth and not kowtowing to the monied elite who hold their purse strings.

Making science understandable and accessible to everyone.

Asperger’s Syndrome.

Guns that detect potential innocent victims like kids and would not fire no matter what.

@mazingerz88 Haha..excellent, bring on the sci-fi.

then the terrorists will only use children as bomb carriers

I really should ask them to work on finding the cure for a disease, or on something to better mankind, but my curiosity gets the better of me and I want them to work on cloning dinosaurs (or other extinct species). I would like to see a real live dodo bird or a wooly mammoth.

An anti-viral as efficient as the original anti-biotics.

Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson on over-prescribing.

A cure for stupid..

Geeze, I didn’t even know Stupid was sick! Seems pretty robust to me!

@majorrich If we cured stupid then genius would be the next stupid when compared to the Mr. Fantastic super-genius. Like how prices go up whenever someone gets a raise and inflation kicks in (it is pay relative to other people that is important) ... but the positive direction is good. Also stupid helps clear out the shallow end of the gene pool. Like the movie Idocracy.

Got a point there. But Wile E, Coyote is a super genius too! LOL.

GAs.