56th Session

The 56th session of the International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies at the Foundation Ettore Majorana and Centre for Scientific Culture1 (FEM) took place between 10-13 August 2024 in Erice, Sicily. The Seminars began in1981, in midst of the Cold War. Each year, nuclear physicists, and advisors to leaders of the most powerful nations had the opportunity to freely exchange ideas and have discussions, at times very heated, thinking about the possible benefits in finding room for positive collaboration among nations that were on the brink of war. One significant result of those discussions was the historic Seminar in August 1987, where Professor Zhou Guang Zhao (Scientific Advisor to Premier Deng Xiaoping), Professor Edward Teller (Scientific Advisor to President Reagan), Professor Eugenij Velikhov (Scientific Advisor to President Gorbachev) and Professor Antonino Zichichi (Chairman of the International Committee ‘Science for Peace’, President and Founder of FEM), reached an Agreement for International Scientific Collaboration East-West-North-South without Secrecy and without Frontiers.
The Seminar this year had eight sessions in which 98 scientists, from 22 nations, participated and spoke. The following topics were discussed among a multi-disciplinary assembly of scientists, policy analysts and other experts:

• managing international conflicts and arms control,
• re-emerging infections and neurological diseases,
• the biological and social factors underlying metabolic and neurological diseases,
• children’s health,
• pollution and the water crisis,
• combating wild-fires,
• climate geoengineering,
• defense against cosmic objects,
• disruptive impacts of solar storms,
• risks and challenges of artificial intelligence,
• the power sector and the energy transition.