Science Friday - Surgeon General, Blockchain. July 23, 2021, Part 1

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Flooding Worldwide Fits Climate Change Models While the western United States is burning again this summer, other parts of the world are drowning. Germany, Belgium, and China saw floods this week after intense rainstorms that dropped many inches of rain in matters of hours, killing hundreds and displacing thousands. In Turkey and Nigeria, less deadly rain events throughout July have still flooded streets and destroyed homes. And as climate change continues around the globe, scientists say these intense rain events will only worsen, putting flood-prone areas at risk of longer-lasting, and faster-raining storms. FiveThirtyEight science writer Maggie Koerth talks to Ira about the rising cost of rain events under climate change. Plus, why climate change may be hurting monarch butterflies more than a lack of milkweed, a first step toward experiments in geoengineering, and how Australia’s cockatoos are spreading a culture of dumpster-diving.     Biden’s Surgeon General On How To Tackle Vaccine Hesitancy It’s a tale of two pandemics. In some parts of the country, communities are opening up, saying it’s time to get back to normal. In other pockets of the country, infection numbers and hospital admissions are creeping up again—and some places, such as Los Angeles County, have moved to reinstate mask mandates, even for the vaccinated.   The key factor in the pandemic response in many communities is the local vaccination level, with outlooks very different for vaccinated and unvaccinated people. But even as public health workers advocate for widespread vaccination, misinformation and disinformation is discouraging some vulnerable people from taking the vaccine. Dr. Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General of the United States, joins Ira to talk about vaccine hesitancy, the U.S. response to the pandemic, preparing for public health on a global scale, and post-pandemic public health priorities.      Will Blockchain Really Change The Way The Internet Runs? The internet has changed quite a bit over the last few decades. People of a certain age may remember having to use dial-up to get connected, or Netscape as the first web browser. Now, social networking is king, and it’s easier than ever to find information at the click of a mouse. But the modern internet has massive privacy concerns, with many sites collecting, retaining, and sometimes sharing user’s personal information. This has led many technology-minded people to think about what the future of the web might look like. Enter blockchain, a decentralized database technology that some say will change the way the internet runs, while giving users more control over their data. Some say that blockchain will be the basis for the next version of the internet, a so-called “Web 3.0.”  But where are we now with blockchain technology, and can it be everything we want it to be? Joining Ira to wade through the jargon of blockchain and the future of the internet is Morgen Peck, freelance technology journalist based in New York.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Later in the hour, talking with the U.S. Surgeon General about vaccines, COVID, and health in the U.S. But first, a wave of flooding around the world this week is throwing the spotlight on one of the predicted consequences of climate change. Intense rainfall, flash flooding, loss of life as areas face an increasing frequency and intensity of storms. Hundreds are dead and more are missing in Germany, Belgium, China, Turkey and Nigeria, and China's floods this week have been called thousand-year events. Here to talk more about this and other stories is Maggie Kerth, senior science writer for a 538. Always good to have you, Maggie.

Thanks for having me back. You know, I have seen some pretty terrible pictures from these floods as I'm sure you have. Can you say more about how bad they've been? Yeah, so these are just huge storms. the system that went across Europe, across Germany and Belgium, dropped six inches of rain in 24 hours, and these flash floods killed at least 196 people. The floods in China, those are even more staggering. So in the city of Zhengzhou, they had a year's worth of rain, more than 25 inches that fell in just three days. Reservoirs were overflowing. There were these videos where you could see people

trying to pull other people out of mudslides. And there were some videos that were, were circulating around where you saw hundreds of people trapped on subway lines with water up to their necks like they'd just been on the subway and the flash flood had come through and inundated it. We saw the floods in China being described as thousand-year floods, something that's only happening once every thousand years, but we're seeing 500-year floods, other places, 200-year floods. This is sort of becoming a name that doesn't mean so much anymore. Right, yeah. So 100-year flood is... kind of a misnomer. It is a way of talking about risk. It's not saying that the flood that you should

expect it to happen only once every hundred years. What it's actually referring to is a flood that has a 1% chance of happening in a given year. So that's a 100 year flood is a 1% chance of happening every year. But that's every year. That's not a 1% chance of happening out of 100 years. That's every year you have a 1% chance. So if you're in 100 year, floodplain in the United States and you buy a house, what you're actually having is over the course of your 30-year mortgage, you've got a 26% chance of being inundated at least once. And the way climate change is happening now, it could be more often. Right. So what we're seeing is a lot of these, you know, 1% chance in a given year floods are

becoming much more frequent. Those same provinces in China that are experiencing flooding right now had last year what was considered historic flooding, and now they've topped it. Studies have suggested that a two-degree increase in global average temperature would raise the risks of extreme flooding events from 1 in 100 to 1 in 25 in that part of the world. And in Germany, you have these insurance reports that have estimated that severe flooding on the Danube River is going to happen twice as often as climate change progresses. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, their meteorological agency has been analyzing 13 flood-affected regions over the course of like 40 years, and they found this rising trend in yearly rainfall, and they say that that is likely to be a significant

factor responsible for floods there. So you're basically just seeing this pattern where climate change is increasing these torrential downpours, which are increasing the flood. risk in places that were already flood prone. Let's move on to your next story, which is also about climate change, and specifically the plight of the monarch butterfly. We've heard a lot about the plight of the monarch over the years. What's different about this? Well, some researchers did a study where they used citizen science surveys and weather data to try to tease apart how much of that butterfly's decline has been due to climate change as compared to all of these other things that are impacting it, including herbicides, destroying its favorite food,

milkweed, and migratory problems. The models that the researchers built using that data showed that between 2004 and 2018, the amount that rainfall and temperature deviated from long-term averages was seven times more important than other factors in explaining the decline in monarch numbers. So basically, they're kind of teasing this apart and finding that over the last 20 years, it's been climate change that has been having the biggest effect on monarchs. Now, that doesn't mean the herbicide isn't an issue. I think a lot of people of my generation sort of grew up hearing that we were killing the monarch's food, we need to plant more milkweed.

In their study, what they found, that was primarily between 1994 and 2003. That was during that time, herbicide was the largest contributor to decline. But we've had this turnaround where we're getting milkweed protection. and milkweed planting. And after 2003, that really got going, and it left climate change as a bigger issue for the bugs after that point. So should I still be planting milkweed then? Yeah, you should.

The butterflies still need it. But it just kind of shows that climate change complicates that. So, for instance, I planted milkweed this year. My milkweed plants died because Minnesota is in the middle of a historic drought. With climate change, you've got drought. you've got flooding, you've got a lot of things that will kill milkweed plants. You also have these butterflies are very delicate creatures, and you get their temperature ranges out of whack by too much,

and that will affect them also. So it affects them directly, and it can affect their food supply, which affects them indirectly. Another story that's really interesting, and something we have talked about for years, and that is trying to change the climate by geoengineering our atmosphere. or talk about that. Yeah, so, well, after finding those couple of stories about climate change that are admittedly

kind of downers, as most climate change stories are, I ran across this piece on live science where apparently the first experiments that could lead to actual, for real, real geoengineering are scheduled for next year. Geoengineering is this idea that we might be able to mitigate the impacts of climate change by essentially harnessing the powers of climate change just in the reverse direction. So we know from history that these large volcanic explosions would cool the planet by filling the atmosphere with dust particles that basically keep sunlight from getting from space to the earth. There's been many controversial discussions over the years about whether it would be possible

or safe or even remotely a good idea to do that same thing. intentionally without the whole destructive volcano part. And to that end, there is a team of researchers at Harvard that are working on a project called the Stratospheric Controlled Pertubation Experiment. And so far, what they've done is a lot of computer simulations. So they've been sort of trying to see, like, if we put what basically amounts to chalk dust particles into the upper atmosphere, what would happen. And their computer simulations are showing that this could work. It could be successful at lowering Earth's temperature. But of course, it wouldn't actually stop global warming. That's one important thing to remember about geoengineering. We're

talking about reducing a symptom temporarily, not actually solving the problem. Yeah, blocking some of the sunlight that would reach the Earth. Right. And it only lasts for so long. Their first real-world experiment would not release any of these particles. What is tentatively scheduled for next would be sending up this large helium balloon thing that they hope to someday use for particle injections and just testing its maneuvering systems and its scientific instruments. It would rise 12 miles up into the sky and return to Earth, but that's a first step towards something a lot bigger. Yeah, so this is just an experiment, right, to see if this thing might work.

They're not talking yet about, hey, everybody adopting this around the Earth because we don't know what would happen if everybody adapted this around the earth. Right. Yeah. So they have they have a series of very small scale proof of concept test experiments that they want to do over the next few years. And one of their arguments for why they should do this is that this kind of geoengineering is something that a rogue group of scientists, a country, could just decide to do. And having this kind of basic science research done, well, that would be helpful so we know what is likely to happen

or how to make this safer if somebody just decides to walk off a cliff and do it without any kind of international agreement. Because if it's going to change the sunlight, you'd like a larger discussion than just a group at Harvard deciding to do that for the whole earth. Yes, you would. Please, Megan, give me something happy to talk about at the end here. Cockatoos, dumpster diving.

Cockatoos. Wow, what's going on? Australia's cockatoos have learned how to open dumpsters and rummage through the trash. How do they do this? Well, so these cockatoos are, there's several steps to this. So they're kind of lifting up the trash cans lid at the front corner with the bill. And then sort of holding it open slightly while they waddle their little feet towards the hinges. and then they just give it a big flip so that it flies open at the end. And what is really interesting about this is that in surveys of all these suburbs around Sydney, Australia,

back in 2018, there were only three suburbs where this behavior was being recorded. By 2019, it had spread to 44 suburbs. And I need to make the obligatory, clever girls joke here. because they're just, they're testing the perimeter fencing. They're learning. They're the dinosaurs. They're figuring things out. It's amazing.

And these are these plastic roleys we all take to the curve. They, you know, with the plastic lid on it, they just flip them up. They flip them up. And what's more? Researchers have shown that different cockatoos are using slightly different methods to open these dumpsters that they want to dive in. And those methods vary based on physical distance. So like the cockatoos that are furthest from each other, like in the suburbs that they live in, have the most difference in how they open the dumpsters, which sort of implies that they are socially teaching skills to each other, not just that the dumpsters can be opened, but how to open them.

It's not quite evidence of human style culture. You know, some of these outside researchers are saying, well, to prove that they'd have to identify a, distinct, unique can-opening technique in a specific region. And that hasn't really happened yet. But this is really kind of cool that this trick is spreading. And these cockatoos seem to be picking it up from other cockatoos. Maggie, always a pleasure to have you. Thanks for taking time to be with us today. Thank you. Maggie Kerth, senior science writer for 538. He's based in Minneapolis. We have to take a short break, and when we come back, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joins us. He has some really interesting things to say about what's most important

to study post-COVID. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Plato. It's a tale of two COVIDs. In some parts of the country, cities are opening up, saying it's time to get back to normal. And others, infection numbers and hospital admissions are creeping up again. And some places like Los Angeles County have moved to reinstate mask mandates, even for the vaccinated. And even as public health workers advocate for widespread vaccination, disinformation is discouraging vulnerable people from taking the vaccine. Joining me now to talk about the pandemic and other U.S. public health concerns is Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General. He heads the U.S. Public Health Service. Welcome to the program, Dr. Murthy. Well, thanks so much, R. I'm so glad to be with you

today. Nice to have you. Give us an idea of where we stand in the pandemic right now. Well, the pandemic is really a tale of two countries right now, which is very unfortunate. In areas of the country where we have high vaccination rates, the story is still quite good. Many people are able to do the activities they were doing beforehand with the vaccination. They have a very high degree of protection, particularly against hospitalization and death from the virus. But in areas of the country where vaccination rates are low, and there are many pockets where vaccination rates are even under 30 percent, we are seeing the Delta variant spread quickly,

and the consequences of that are showing up in our emergency rooms, in our hospitals, and now an increase in deaths. And so the message is unfortunately still the same, which is that the vaccinations work. They are very effective, but we have not been able to get enough people in our country to take them to get the protection of the vaccine that we, you know, can see cases not really come down, but stay down. Can you explain and understand the campaign of misinformation about the vaccines? I mean, is it due to not understanding or a lack of trust or actual malice in some cases? Well, it's a good question.

And the misinformation is really impacting people's confidence with the vaccine. With that said, let me say one thing just by way of background, which is that vaccine confidence, which is people's willingness to get vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine, has actually been increasing since December when the vaccines came out. It's actually at its highest point right now with about 70% plus of people who have either gotten vaccinated or saying they're eager to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Another 12, 13% of individuals who say they're in wait and C category and about 17% who say they're not inclined to take the vaccine. So while confidence is growing, we wanted to grow even further because we want to get more.

people vaccinated. But the misinformation stands as an obstacle. And right now, about two-thirds of people who are unvaccinated say that they either believe common myths about the vaccine or they think those myths might be true. Mits like you can get COVID from the vaccine, which is absolutely not true. Or myths around infertility or DNA mutations being linked to the vaccine, also not true and not grounded in fact. Some of that misinformation is being spread intentionally, what we call disinformation. But a significant amount of it is actually just being spread. unintentionally. Think about the individual who decides, hey, I see an interesting article, a little worrisome, maybe I should share this by family and friends so that they are warned

as well, not realizing all the while that that might not be accurate information. So we're seeing it spread really through both channels enabled, in large part, by the technology that we have today, particularly social media platforms. Well, do you think that there's anything anyone can say or do to break through to change people's minds, people who are, being misinformed intentionally or unintentionally or people who are political. They just don't want to do it because the president says it or the Democrats say it or some, you know, some people they don't like or agree with say it. How do you get through that or do you just say I can't get through that? Well, it's interesting for those who are listening and thinking, gosh, this is just too hard to do,

I would point you to seniors in our country where we have almost 90% of seniors who have gotten at least one shot of the vaccine, amongst 80% who have gotten fully vaccinated. And that means that we have actually significant number of people all across the political spectrum in this senior category who have gotten vaccinated. So is it possible to break across political boundaries? Absolutely yes. But sometimes it's not about the message. It's about who the messenger is. And one of the things we've learned during this vaccination effort is that the messengers truly matters, because this is about trust. And not everyone trusts the same people or the same institutions. In fact, if you look more recently at some data that just came out about people who changed their mind

about the vaccine, a significant number of those individuals who went from being in a wait-and-see category to then ultimately getting vaccinated, said that what changed their mind was hearing information about the vaccine from their family, their friends, or their doctor, not from billboards, not from ads that they saw on TV, not from ads that they saw in social media, but from people they trust. And that's really what this comes down to is how do we support doctors and nurses, family members, faith leaders, and other trusted messengers and communities so that they can help bring accurate scientific information of people so they can make the right decision for themselves. If someone considers all the information,

they make a decision that I like or don't like, that's absolutely fine. That's their right. What worries me is when people don't have accurate information and they're making decisions off of falsehoods. Okay, let's talk about trust a bit because you have two groups that people should trust the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics, basically saying different things with regard to mask wearing in schools. How do you decide as a person between these two organizations that you trust about whose advice you're going to take? Well, so the broader question is a good one, which is that at a time where science is evolving and where some recommendations may be something today, there may be something in a few months based on how the data evolves. One of the challenges we have

is how do we make sure people are kept up to date with how the data is changing, and that's why the recommendations are changing. That's not always easy to do. We haven't always sent a good job of it as a scientific community, and that does sometimes lead to confusion. With regard to the American Academy of Pediatrics in the CDC, what you're referring to, I believe, is a mass guidance that came out recently. And even though that seems like it may not be consistent or congruent, it turns out actually, they are remarkably close in terms of their guidance. Both believe the layers of protection are important. Both talk about the importance of masks, of distancing, of testing, in keeping our kids safe when they go back to school. What the CDC says is that vaccinated

individuals have the option of wearing the mask or not, you know, depending on what their school and their locality decide, but that unvaccinated kids should wear the mask. What the AAP says is that you should exercise that option. If you're vaccinated, still continue to wear a mask have an abundance of caution. And that's a very reasonable thing to do. So if you look at the broader picture, these two organizations have actually been saying the same thing, working together, expressing to parents out there into schools that these layers of caution are important. And it's part what we've got to do to get our kids back to school. One of the things we've all learned in recent years is how global health issues can be. How do we address some of those health concerns

like COVID on a global scale? What kinds of tools can we use? Is it just, a matter of money, giving out aid to countries? How do we work with them? It's a really good question, because I think we were reminded this time of a lesson that we were taught during the Ebola scare, during the outbreak in West Africa, back in 2014, 2015. And that lesson is that global pandemics require global cooperation, that you don't pull yourself up and wall yourself off as one country and say, we'll take care of ourselves, because these viruses can spread quickly from one country to the other. And that's what we've seen with these variants.

So I think to address the broader global nature of these pandemics, we've got to do a few things. Number one, yes, we do need funding to support a variety of things, including vaccine production and better systems for surveillance so we can detect outbreaks early on. But what we also need are relationships, our partnerships, our partnerships with other countries so that we can work closely together. The old saying, you know, it still applies here, which is that the time to build relationships is not during a crisis. It's before a crisis because you're going to need to lean on those relationships and that cooperation during the throes of a pandemic. So we've got to build those partnerships so we can share data so we can share technical expertise and learnings and ensure that we're operating at the top of our global knowledge set.

But the other thing that we're going to need, Ira, is manufacturing capacity. Now, that may not seem so exciting to everyone, but let me think. tell you that when you're thinking about putting together billions and billions of tests so you can detect infection in communities around the world, when you're talking about trying to scale up vaccine production to 14, 15 billion, what we've got to do if we want to be prepared for the next pandemic is build the right global partnerships and invest in global manufacturing capacity, build the scientific networks outside of government in the private sector that can share knowledge as well, and invest not just the United States but countries around the world in supporting better data

surveillance systems, the manufacturing of testing and vaccines and therapeutics, because we're going to need all of that to address the next potential pandemic. And there will be another pathogen down the line. It's not a question of if. It's a question of when. Yes, you anticipated my next question because it is about a question of when and not if. How do we build in a resiliency into what we've learned? Tell me some steps that we could take or that you see that we might be taking. Well, I think there are a number of areas where we're already taking steps, but that are going to be critical to keep up in terms of momentum. One is investing in our public health infrastructure as a country.

I'm not just talking about the CDC and the NIH being equipped with more resources to have even better surveillance systems. I'm talking about local public health. I'm talking about the communities all across our country that have been really decimated in terms of their budgets back during the Great Recession back in 2008, and which never really recovered their funding, even when the economy recovered. They are struggling in terms of their data systems, their personnel, their capacity. If you ask, why aren't we doing better contact tracing in our country during this pandemic? One of the reasons is because you require local

resources and personnel to do contact tracing. And again, another area where we've deeply underinvested. So we got to invest in local public health infrastructure. The second thing that we've got to do is investing our communication infrastructure. If we learned one thing during this pandemic about communication, it's that you don't get the message out just by talking to a couple of papers and, you know, in a couple of TV stations because not everyone listens to the same sources. We're in an environment where people need to hear from different messengers where there's a lot of misinformation out there. So thinking about how we build powerful communication partnerships with faith organizations, local doctors and nurses, so that they can be partners in disseminating

accurate scientific information is also going to be a critical part of this. And finally, we've got to also invest in our basic science infrastructure. You know, it's sometimes easy to say, let's just invest in what's going to turn around returns today or what can pay off over the next 12 months. But basic science research is an important investment for the long term. The mRNA vaccines that we have right now, Ira, these are built on platforms that we have been investing in and developing for more than two decades. Two decades ago, somebody could have said, well, why do we mean want to invest in this? Or we're really going to have a vaccine in the next 12 months? But thank goodness that they made that investment because it's benefiting us today. So these are all just

some of the few of the many components that we're going to need to make sure that we're ready for the next pandemic. And finally, I'll just say partnerships. You know, I talked about in the global sense why partnerships are so critical with other countries. But even domestically, we need to have strong partnerships between local, federal, and state government when it comes to data sharing and analysis, when it comes to responding to outbreaks, when it comes to distributing therapeutics. We can't be 50 states fighting, you know, over the same resources. There are times Ira where when are 50 states, there are times where we have to be one nation. And pandemics are a time where we've got to work closely together. But again, that doesn't

happen overnight. You've got to build those partnerships right now. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Talking with Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General. Let's talk about aside from COVID, get away from that a bit, because your job is more than just COVID, isn't it? I mean, what do you see as the major public health issue facing the country right now? That's not COVID. The issue that worries me the most, apart from COVID, is what's happening to our mental health as a country overall, but particularly to our kids. Before COVID, we were already struggling with high levels of depression and anxiety. We were also struggling with high levels of loneliness, it turns out, which have market impacts on the mental and physical health of

individuals. But during COVID, what we saw is actually an increase in depression and anxiety. And particularly in certain populations, including health care workers and public health workers, including parents and caregivers, we saw a real increase in mental health stress and strain. And I worry about this, Ira, because I don't think that we were doing an amazing job before the pandemic in caring for the mental health and well-being of people in our country. We just have significantly underinvested in prevention programs, even though we know what works. We still have a fragmented and underfunded treatment system. And we have this terrible stigma still, which makes people afraid to admit that they're struggling and that they need help.

But the pandemic has made it very clear, Ira, that all of us have struggled in some way. And we will continue at various points and various degrees to struggle in the months and years that follow this pandemic, this trauma, if you will. And so that's what worries me. think then the bright side area, we have an opportunity to reimagine the kind of country that we want when it comes to mental health, to think about how we talk about mental health and well-being in a very different way, and to certainly support it from an institutional and policy perspective in a way that makes well-being something that's within the reach of every person, certainly every child in our country. Many Surgeon Generals have one big issue that they're known for. What do you think your signature issue is

going to be or would like it to be when you're done. Will it be mental health reform? Well, you know, legacies I leave up to reporters and history books and people. That's not for me to determine, but I'll tell you what I deeply care about, what I want to focus on. And that includes mental health, but it's broader than mental health, because it's about well-being more broadly. Well-being is a lot more than mental illness. It's about whether we are optimizing our physical and emotional well-being in each and every day of our life. I'll tell you, Ira, that for me, becoming a father really sharpened my feelings about this and my thinking. I have a three-year-old daughter, a four-year-old son, really blessed at these two wonderful kids.

But each day when I look at them, I'm reminded that, one, when we are born, we have such joy and our capacity for living in the moment and for expressing ourselves openly and honestly is so great. But then things happen to us, Ira, as we go through life. People tell us that we shouldn't be honest with how we're feeling because we might be taken advantage of. Things happen to us, disappointments, and other failures, and we become scared sometimes to be honest about who we are. It's not of our fault. It happens to all of us, but I think it takes a toll on our well-being. And so one of the things I find most interesting and most concerning and urgent is this question of how do we rethink the cultural underpinnings of well-being? How do we think about the factors that are driving us to not be who we are, to disconnect from perhaps the deeper impulses we had when we were children to drive us toward happiness and openness and transparency?

How do we get back to being who we really are? And that's a conversation I think we are primed to have during this pandemic as we look to potentially come out of it in the months ahead. Because the question IRA for all of us is how do we design our post-pandemic life? we don't have to snap back to 2019 exactly as it was. We have a choice to make. How do we want to live differently? And in my work, as Surgeon General and afterward, if I could do one thing, which is to shift us away from living in a work-centered society

to living in a people-centered society where we prioritize relationships, where we build our lives around the people that we love, to me that would be one of the most powerful things that we could do to harness the extraordinary power of relationships to improve our health, our well-being, and our happiness. Well, Dr. Murthy, we're going to watch you and see how well you can make good that ideal. Thank you very much for taking time to be with us today. Well, thanks so much, Eric. It's so nice to talk to you. Take care. Thank you. Dr. Vivek, Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General, head of the U.S. Public Health Service.

We're going to take a break when we come back. We're going to talk about the future of the Internet. blockchain promises big things, but can it deliver? Stay with us. We'll be right back. This is Science Friday. I'm Iroflato. If you're a person of a certain age, like I am, you probably remember the early days of the internet. Using dial-up to get connected, Netscape is the first web browser. Seems quaint looking back, doesn't it? Well, the internet we now know has changed quite a bit since then. Social networking is king, and it's easier than ever to find any information you want. But the modern Internet also has massive privacy concerns,

and lots of people out there are thinking about what the future of the web might look like. Enter blockchain. You know that as a decentralized database technology that some people say is going to change the way the Internet runs and give people more control over their data. Some say blockchain will be the basis for the next version of the Internet. what you may have heard referred to as 3.0. But where are we now with blockchain? And can it be everything we want it to be?

Joining me today to wait through the jargon and the mysteries behind blockchain and the future of the internet is my guest, Morgan Peck, freelance technology journalists based in New York. Welcome back to the show, Morgan. Thanks for having me back. Nice to have you. Okay, it sounds very futuristic, this possible new version of the internet. Let's talk about the concept of the internet.

3.0, Web 3.0. Tell us what that means. You know, I would say that in some ways, it's a marketing term. Same with 2.0. You know, when you, when you have a term that's as juicy as Web 3.0, a lot of people want to get in there and define it for themselves. So in some ways, it doesn't mean a lot, because it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But for our purposes, I would look back at Web 2.0 and sort of think of that. as a time when users were really the ones creating content on the internet, and they had platforms that enabled that, facilitated it like social media. And so it was really about what the user was bringing to the experience. And Web 3.0, you could see that as the user now being given

agency over how that data that they've brought, how it's going to be used, and what the actual structure is of the platforms that they're using and how those things work. So giving them more of a say or more control over how those work and how the content that they were invited to bring and share is actually used. That's how I think of it. Yeah. And Web 3.0 is powered by blockchain, right? Well, I would say that some people would like it to be, whether or not it can be is a big open question. But there are certainly, you know, there certainly is a vision out there being advanced and their advocates who would like to see a future in which, you know, everything we do on the internet now using social media and all the ways that we talk to each other online,

that that's happening on top of a blockchain. Yeah. I've mentioned it. before it, but it is sort of a confusing concept of people. Give me your best description of what blockchain is. Like you're explaining it to a fifth grader. Okay. So I think it's best if you sort of back up and take a little look at how services work on the internet and really simplify that if we're going to simplify blockchain. So you can think of every service out there as a big stack of records. So a big pile of data. Your bank account is, a big pile of data about how much money you have and where it's gone and what you want to do with it. Twitter is a big stack of data about what people have said and what they've shared with each other and who they want to see it.

And then you also have the problem of updating that. And so those updates have to follow certain rules, right? So we usually give these tasks of storing that data and updating the data to companies or governments, but basically like, close. services. And what, you know, a blockchain does or what people who use blockchain technology want to do is to take both the storage of data and the processing and the updating of that data and spread it out. And in some cases, spread it out to anybody who wants to participate. So that causes a lot of problems. If you're going to give all the data to everybody and give everybody sort of a copy of what's out there, you're going to have inherently privacy problems. You know, how do you keep people? from like seeing everybody's stuff.

And if you're also going to give people the ability to make those updates, you're going to have to coordinate them somehow. So I'd say that the cryptography part of, you know, a blockchain and cryptocurrency is how do you give everybody the data but not have them see exactly what's going on? That's the cryptography part. And then the blockchain part is really the structure of the data and how you coordinate all of these people who may not trust each other and have no reason to trust each other. because they don't know who each other are, how do you let them all updated at the same time?

And what that results in is this data structure where you're adding new chunks in these blocks of data. So you're not just like adding one piece at a time. You're scooping a bunch up and then adding it. And it results in what we call a blockchain, which is a series of those blocks of additions, which once they're added, you can't reverse it. Nobody can take it apart and rearrange it and mess with it. And is that the advantage of it? I mean, you talked about the weaknesses of it. So why use it?

What are the advantages of blockchain? That's a really big question, one that's gotten muddled, I think. But the scenario in which a blockchain is obviously useful is where you have a bunch of people who do not trust each other but want to collaborate on building a database that you need to continuously update. And you want to do that without there being one person who's making all the decisions. And then the why, why would you want to remove that, you know, we could have a gatekeeper who just like does that and it's way easier and you don't have to have like all of these versions all over

a network. Why would you want to take that out? That sort of depends on your use case. But a lot of the time it's, you know, because you don't want one person to censor that data or, you know, you don't have anybody that you trust. So you have to put together a bunch of people that you don't trust and then give them a way to work together. Because they can all check the block and keep each other, you know, honest, so to speak, by seeing if anyone is trying to meddle with the block and the chain.

That's one of the ways it stays secure. Yep, there are some other really complicated ways. But, yeah, the transparency of it is definitely a big piece. If somebody tries any funny business on the Bitcoin blockchain, everybody sees it. Yeah. Well, let's talk about you. You brought up Bitcoin blockchain. I think a lot of people confuse Bitcoin and blockchain and think that Bitcoin and blockchain are

equivalent or the same thing and they're not. Right. Well, so Bitcoin was the first blockchain. The concept didn't exist until the anonymous creator of Bitcoin made Bitcoin and he or she or they just happened to use something that they called a blockchain. But since then, other people have tried to, you know, make similar applications that do distribute, you know, storage and this updating function I'm talking about. And they're using the same like blockchain architecture. But, but the first one was Bitcoin. But yeah, not at not every blockchain is Bitcoin. Now, speaking of blockchain, we, we hear the, the term Ethereum thrown around as if that is one kind of blockchain. Explain what Ethereum and how it fits in.

to this picture? Ethereum was unveiled, the concept for it was unveiled in 2014. So that's, you know, five years after Bitcoin. And it has its own blockchain, but it is a project that seeks to add functionality to beyond just transferring funds. What Bitcoin does is move assets from one person's possession to another. Ethereum has its own blockchain and it's using its network to support all sorts of different types of functions. Like, I mean, basically anything that you would have on the internet, you can build on Ethereum or that's the hope.

So it's an alternate, it's an alternate internet. It's, it's a way of connecting banks or you or people and devices and playing games and you could have cryptocurrency on it. you could have the NFTs we talk about, all on this. This is sort of a backbone then of this new kind of Web 3.0. Yep, it's a backbone. And because of that, you know, you have the Ethereum blockchain, but you also can build other coins on top of it. So there are just tons of coins that people have used Ethereum to put out there.

Let's talk about right now, 2021, where we are, where are we at with blockchain technology? What is it actually used for as we speak? Well, there are lots of projects in various stages, but I would say that it's actually hard to find ones that are in wide usage, but the ones where there's been the most interest over the last two years is in a sector called Defi, which is decentralized finance. And this is actually basically just trying to take banking and put it on a blockchain.

And banking that's more complex than just me giving you, sending you a payment or something. So it's different ways of making loans, setting up loans, and all of the really complex banking stuff. But it's still, you know, fundamentally has to do with assets. So I would say that, you know, although there's been a lot of, there was a lot of excitement especially in like 2015 to 2018 about having non-financial applications, what we've really seen the most growth in is kind of replicating our banking system in a decentralized, hopefully a more decentralized manner. But that's actually kind of ironic because Bitcoin itself really came out of the financial

collapse and a lot of people were the people who got excited about it did so because, you know, it was pulling all of the complexity away from, from a system that it sort of led us into demise very much through its, its opacity and complexity. So some people think, you know, we're just kind of building that again. Yeah, well, the whole idea is to do away with the banks altogether as the middleman, is it not? Some would say that, though there are blockchain projects that have now, you know, are partnering with J.P. Morgan and there are all sorts of partnerships going on. And like I said, you know, the most active sector of the industry is this decentralized finance. One of the big controversies with our current version of the web lies with social media platforms and how much data they collect from users. Are there any movements to move social media to blockchain? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, this is one of the first things I heard about was we're going to, you know, we're going to have a decentralized version of Reddit. We're going to have a decentralized version of Twitter. And the promise of those things was, you know, you won't be censored. And you'll have control of your data, you know. And if anybody wants to use your data, you'll either be able to say no or you'll be able to commoditize it. So those were very early projects. And right now, I would say there are multiple projects that I, as someone who follows very closely,

haven't heard of most of them. And unfortunately, they are just not there in terms of usability. And so they're not getting a lot of traction. And I did ask somebody, you know, why, why isn't this happening? and they said, you know, it's in part because of bad user interface development, but there are also just really structural, fundamental weaknesses of blockchain technology that have not been solved and that have been a problem since the beginning that we've all known about that make it slow and then make it expensive.

And so, you know, if you're going to have a social network on a blockchain, The way it's going to work is that you're going to be paying as you go along. All of these things have a token embedded within them. And so you kind of have to use that every time you want to interact with the platform. And so you're spending continuously. And right now we just have really high price are really high. And doing those transactions is really expensive. And it's also quite slow because they haven't figured out scaling issues with the technology.

And that in part has made these, you know, we're just not there yet. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. So this is an industry or a technology really in its infancy that has ideas behind it that have not really been come to fruition yet. Would that be coming close to summarizing it? Yeah, I would say that, yes. And, you know, any industry, it takes time to get developers educated. You know, this is a really new discipline technology.

And so that's part of the problem. And building things, things takes time. But unfortunately, I do think that there are just structural problems with how a blockchain actually works, that it's not clear yet whether those problems are going to be solved to the point that we're actually making user-friendly things. that can actually compete with, you know, the big boys. So what blockchain needs to become the version of itself that people have promised is to solve these structural problems where the transactions don't work very quickly.

It's expensive. We're not sure. We trust the players in it, those kinds of things. Absolutely. Those are the two big ones. It's slow and it's expensive. And there are some really experimental change. that are happening in the near future that people think are going to alleviate those scaling

problems, but it's totally an open question right now. And so you watch to see whether those scaling problems can be solved. Yeah, and until they can, you know, you might still have a platform where you can't censor, you know, tweets and stuff like that. But I think what we're seeing is that's not enough, you know. There are some people in the community for whom that is enough and that's, That is a goal unto itself. But, you know, with technology, convenience is absolutely always the most driving factor, I think, in adoption.

And these are not convenient tools right now. Well, it was very convenient to have you here, Morgan. Thank you for taking time to be with us today. Morgan Peck, freelance technology journalist based in New York. Thank you for taking time to be with us today. It was great. Thanks, Ira. And that's about all the time we have for this hour. Charles Berkwist is our director, our producers, our Christy Taylor and Kathleen Davis.

Our intern is Emily Zhang, senior producer Alexa Lim, John Denkoski is our news director, and BJ Leidman composed our theme music. One last thing before we go. Did you know Science Friday hosts virtual trivia nights? Yes. Join us next Wednesday, July 28th at 8.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Bring a team or bravely play solo to an ultimate bragging rights. Now this time, we've teamed up with the group Bird Names for Birds and researcher Joita Martinez for an all-birds themed evening.

If you're one for the birds, go to ScienceFriiday.com slash trivia to RSVP on our website. That's ScienceFriday.com slash trivia. And of course, if you missed any part of the program or we'd like to hear it again, subscribe to a podcast or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Have a great weekend. I'm Ira Flato.