Science Friday - Trump Administration Cancels Meetings, Freezes Hiring At NIH | What Is A Meme Coin?

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health say the move has sent fear and confusion throughout the agency. Plus, what's the technology behind meme coins?Trump Administration Cancels Meetings, Freezes Hiring At NIHThis was President Trump’s first week back in the Oval Office. Along with issuing a flurry of executive orders, his administration has imposed a range of restrictions on the National Institutes of Health, affecting meetings, travel, hiring, funding, and communications. Scientists expressed alarm about what this could mean for ongoing research, with no clear timeline for if or when the freeze would be lifted.Flora Lichtman is joined by Casey Crownhart, climate editor at the MIT Technology Review, to catch up on this and other big science stories of the week, including what’s coming next this year for nuclear power, why a record amount of snow fell in the Southeast this week, and new research on the surprisingly complex biology of a manta ray tail.What Exactly Is A Meme Coin And How Does It Work?A few days before President Trump’s inauguration, he hosted a “crypto ball” in Washington, D.C. That night, he unveiled his very own meme coin—a kind of digital asset that has gained a reputation for facilitating scams. Soon after, first lady Melania Trump also launched her own meme coin. After its launch, Trump’s coin’s market capitalization reached billions of dollars.This isn’t the first time meme coins have gotten a lot of attention—you might remember Elon Musk joked about another one called Dogecoin on SNL in 2021—but it is the first time that this technology has been used by a sitting president. So what exactly is a meme coin anyway? How does the blockchain play into all this? And how might a president use it differently than an internet celebrity?To find out more, Flora Lichtman talks with Liz Lopatto, a senior writer at The Verge who covers cryptocurrency and business, about how this market started, how Trump could use meme coins, and where the crypto market could go next.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  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 Flora Lichten. It was President Trump's first week back in office, and along with a number of executive orders, the new administration has imposed a range of restrictions on the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health. Here to get us up to speed is Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter at the MIT Technology Review. Welcome back to Science Friday, Casey. Thanks so much. Always great to be here. Casey, what is happening? All kinds of things are happening. Mass confusion is happening. So like you said, the Trump administration imposed new restrictions on the NIH. That includes a suspension of all travel, a pause on all external communications out of the agency, and it's also being affected by a government-wide hiring freeze. And researchers are saying that this sort of disruption can have ripple effects that slow down the pace of research. You know, the NIH is responsible for all public health and biomed research for the government. So this could have long-ranging effects depending on how long this all lasts. I'm reading that it's also some grant-making operations. Have you heard anything about that? Absolutely. So, I mean, it really ranges from,

you know, researchers aren't able to travel to conferences, groups that would meet to approve grants aren't meeting. There's really like a range of things that this is affecting at the agency. One thing that really surprised me was, you know, we were expecting reports on the H5N1 bird flu outbreaks this week. And now it's not clear when those reports are going to be published. Do you have a sense of how unusual this is? I mean, does this typically happen when a new administration takes over? Some section of this is pretty common. So like a short pause on communications has happened in the past when a new administration takes office. But researchers are saying that kind of the scope of this is pretty unusual. So the travel pause, for example, isn't very common. It's also not totally clear how

long this communications pause will be in effect. So it's definitely a little bit out of the ordinary for an administration taking over. How are scientists reacting? There's a lot of concern. Like I said, part of this depends on kind of how long this will last. But one researcher, for example, called this devastating in Astoria Science magazine. You know, all of these young researchers is just trying to do science and communicate that science to the public. They're really nervous about what the future might hold here. What's the impact or the potential impact on science and scientists? I think that pauses and interruptions like this can have long-ranging effects on science. So the NIH does research on things like, you know, biomedicine and public health. And so, you know, this could

slow down our understanding of important public health phenomenon. Like, you know, we talked about bird flu. It could also, you know, slow. You know, down advances in getting new drugs onto the market and kind of the research involved in that. So like I said, it kind of depends on how long this lasts, but it definitely could come with ripple effects. To our scientists, listeners, we would like to hear from you on this. If you have been affected by what's happening at the NIH, please give us a call 646-767-676532, or you can email us at SciFri at ScienceFri.com.

Casey, let's also briefly touch on some of the executive orders that relate to climate and energy. Yeah. So Trump signed 26 executive orders on his first day in office, a whole range of topics. One of the ones that I was, you know, watching the most closely was one that Trump signed to pull out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. That's the international treaty that aims to limit global warming. That wasn't a big surprise Trump pulled out in his first term as well. Another big one in the world of science, Trump also signed an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization. That's the UN agency that really works on public health. So that could have ripple effects around the world as well. We'll be following this. Let's turn to a story you wrote recently about nuclear power and how we're at a tipping point for it. Tell me what you found. Yeah, I think 2025 is going to be a really important and exciting point. time for nuclear energy. Nuclear is, you know, a really big chunk of how the world gets electricity, especially electricity that doesn't come with huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions attached.

And what we're seeing this year is that advanced reactor technology could really start to kind of take off and enter this new phase. Most nuclear reactors that are on the grid today follow a pretty similar blueprint. They're really big. They use water for a coolant and low-enriched uranium as a fuel. And we're starting to see kind of efforts to go outside that blueprint, build smaller reactors, for example, that could be quicker and cheaper to build or use different things for the coolant and the fuel. One expert that I spoke to said that, you know, this is really the time that we're starting to see paper reactors turn into, you know, real life reactors. So we could see some projects coming online in the next couple of years. You wrote that AI is playing a role

in nuclear's future too. Tell me about it. Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a whole lot of different things that are contributing to rising electricity demand, but AI and big data centers are definitely expected to be a significant part of that. And one effect that we're seeing is that that is driving efforts to squeeze out as much power as we can out of existing reactors. Because, you know, those advanced projects, it'll still take years for the first of their kind to be built, not to mention, you know, enough to really make a difference on the grid. And so I'm really interested to see reactors that are having their lifetimes extended, for example, or efforts to reopen nuclear plants that have shut down, like the at the former Three Mile Island nuclear plant or Palisades in Michigan. So I'm really

interested to see how people, you know, like I said, try to squeeze everything they can out of nuclear reactors. Moving on, it was a dramatic weather week in the Southeast U.S. I mean, there were record snowfalls in Louisiana and Florida. How did this happen, meteorologically speaking? As a super weird week for weather in the southeast. I saw that since the beginning of December, New Orleans has had more than double the snowfall of Anchorage, Alaska, as of earlier this week. That's wild. Wait a second. Say that again. Yes. So since the beginning of meteorological winter, which is December 1st. New Orleans has seen about eight inches of snow. Anchorage, Alaska has seen a little under four inches of snow. Wow. Yes, wild. So part of this is kind of, is basically

lake effect snow. So that kind of phenomenon that means that the Great Lakes region, the Midwestern U.S. typically sees a lot of snow. You have moisture coming off of the lakes in the Midwest. A similar thing happened with the Gulf. So we often see low pressure systems over the Gulf, kind of pushing north and going along the coast. Usually that means rain, but this time there was kind of this weird confluence of an Arctic air mass coming from the north, which made it very cold. And so we saw a lot of snow in places that don't usually get it. Wow. So not the lake effect, the Gulf effect. Exactly. Is this a symptom of climate change? Oh, this is a great question with maybe a complicated answer. So we know that overall climate change causes rising temperatures. And

seeing actually overall over the last few decades fewer cold weather events because of climate change. But climate change isn't just global warming. Some scientists also call it global weirding. So one way that climate change could be contributing to events like this is that there's a polar jet stream, right? There's a band of these strong winds that blows west to east typically, which keeps the polar vortex, that mass of cold air up in the Arctic. Some studies suggest that climate change makes that jet stream kind of wobbly, which can disrupt that vortex and make it possible and maybe likely for that air to kind of escape and come down south like we saw this week. So definitely kind of potentially a little bit of climate change evolved here, but it's weather and climate are also very complicated, especially in kind of rear events like this. Okay. Let's head to Los Angeles. Fires are still burning. residents are now dealing with something else as well, the aftermath. Will you tell me about it?

Absolutely. So like you said, some of the biggest fires have been contained, although I will say that there are still dangerous fire conditions in L.A. So do continue to keep watching that. But now as residents start kind of cleanup and recovery efforts, experts are warning that the ash that's left behind from these fires can be very dangerous. Especially in fires that burn structures, the ash can contain toxic compounds, you know, things like, like asbestos and lead that are common in older buildings, even more common materials like plastics that are all over our homes, things like batteries can, when they burn, you know, release these compounds that you really don't want to be breathing in. So if you are involved in recovery, folks should wear N95 masks and gloves and be careful around those efforts. Does that show up on your air quality app, you know, on your weather app?

I think it's actually very difficult to measure because even small amounts of this can be, you know, dangerous or have long-ranging impacts that are kind of difficult to measure on our health. And a lot of air quality monitoring, it's difficult to pick those things up. Let's wrap up with a refreshing dip in the sea. Tell me about this new Manta Ray finding. Yes. So big mystery in science up until now has been what in the world are Manta Rays? Ray's tails for. Right, because stingrays, we know, they're a weapon. Yes, infamously used for defense. And most other kind of, you know, sea creatures use their tails to propel through the water. Mantrae tails do neither of those things. And so researchers wanted to look into what in the

world they're using their tails for. And so what they found is that their tails might be acting as antenna basically designed to detect approaching danger. Really? What are they sensing? So basically the organs that are in their tails are linked to their lateral line canal. This is a common system of sensory organs in fish and amphibians that can basically detect movements in surrounding water. For most aquatic vertebrates, that is most complex and kind of developed near their head. But in some kinds of rays, that system runs all the way down their tail. And the idea, kind of the hypothesis is that it's because a lot of rays bury their heads in the sand to eat and leave their back sides and their tails exposed behind them, sticking up in the

water. So if, for example, a shark is swimming by moving a lot of water around, that tail could kind of detect that and say, oh, time to finish up my lunch. Wow, like a spiky sense in their tail. Exactly. That's a great image, too. I know. So kind of adorable, I think. at least. Thanks for bringing us. Thanks for bringing us the news this week, Casey. Thanks so much. Always great to be here. Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter at the MIT Technology Review. Don't go away after the break. What is a meme coin? The sort of way that this gets to referred to is, I'm not kidding, Ponziomics. Last Friday just before the inauguration, President Trump hosted a crypto ball in D.C., where he and Melania Trump unveiled their very own

meme coins. You may have heard about it. President Trump and First Lady Melania launched meme coins. The cryptocurrency world erupted into chaos as Donald Trump and Melania Trump launched rival meme coins. Donald Trump has stamped his likeness on his own meme coin. I am going to venture that many of us don't have a crystal clear understanding of what this is or why you'd want to make one or sell one or buy one. So up next, what is a meme coin? How is it related to Bitcoin? What do you do with them? As you can hear, I have a lot of question coins in my digital wallet. And we have just the right person to give us some answers. Liz Lepato is a senior writer at the verge where she covers cryptocurrency and business. Liz, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you very much. Good to be here. Liz, what is a meme? Is it a meme? Is it a coin? I mean, maybe the easiest way of describing this is to say that it's kind of like a digital stock that tracks how popular a meme is. So unlike something like Bitcoin, this isn't really about technical innovation and it's not meant to be something that could be used as a substitution for currency. It's mostly about going viral.

So it's like a stock in an idea or in a meme. Yeah, so let's just start with stocks, right? You know, those tracks sort of the future of a company and can be used as a way of understanding how one feels about, let's say, Apple, right? If you feel good about Apple's future, you buy Apple's stock. So to sort of translate that, a meme coin can be thought of as a way of expressing an emotion about a meme with money. Assume that the meme becomes more popular. And, you know, and thus the meme coin will go up. It's almost pure psychology. This is economics without any underlying real world assets. And so there's like a culture of gambling around meme coins, which I'm sure will just shock you. And the sort of way that this gets referred to is, I'm not kidding, Ponziomics. And the idea is, like everybody knows kind of the trajectory of how how meme coins work, which is they go up in value and then they immediately, they drop very steeply, and then usually they aren't worth anything. This is just speaking generally. That's the usually

how it goes with a meme coin. Usually how it goes. Not always, but very often. So the idea, if you're playing in meme coins and you're cynical, is that you buy in thinking that you will sell before the big drop off and you will make money that way. Is anyone playing? Is anyone playing? in meme coins who's not cynical? We call them bagholders. They're the people who lose all their money. They're stuck holding the bag. That's right. And, you know, like, listen, there is, there are real ideologically committed people in the crypto space, but they don't typically work on meme coins. And they refer to them as something I don't think I can say on your show. Four letter coins. Yeah, that's right. And these are things that are not taken very seriously.

And, you know, sort of the er-me-coin, if you will, is Doge coin, which was created as a parody of cryptocurrency and then sort of took off. And you may recall, there was a period where Doge had a big run-up in value. And then Elon Musk went on Saturday at Live. I keep telling you, it's a cryptocurrency you can trade for conventional money. Oh, so it's a hustle. Yeah, it's a hustle. How are you saying that, man? and the value immediately plummeted.

And that's kind of how these things work, right? Like you hit the peak and then everybody sells it once. And one of the things that's interesting about how some of these meme coins work is that many people who are getting into them is their first foray into cryptocurrency. And I think it's a very easy way to get burned. So it's a hustle? It's a hustle. How is the crypto community reacting to President Trump's new meme coins?

Well, they're not happy about it, right? Meme coins are not universally popular within the crypto world. And I think a lot of people who are the true believers really do see the risks that are involved with them. One of my favorite things was actually I saw members of the crypto community who were blaming Gary Gensler, who is the former head of the SEC, for not having created a framework that would have prevented meme coins like this. And it's particularly funny if you are pretty deep in the finance world because, The crypto community has hated Gary Gensler for cracking down on crypto. And so to have them suddenly say, oh, he wasn't cracking it down enough or he wasn't cracking down in the right way is just sure, guys. There was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal complaining about it.

This is something that people who are serious about cryptocurrency feel undermines the seriousness of what they're attempting to do. Because this is more cynical or because this is not actually about being an alternative. to existing currency, or is this about deeper ethical concerns? That's right. And I mean, also, you know, just being blunt here, this is also potentially a route for bribing the president, right? Because who stands to benefit the most when the meme coin goes up in value? It's the person who holds the most of the meme coin and who is that. So, you know, there's, there are real ethical concerns here as well as the sort of ideoling ideological concerns that come with the launch of a presidential meme coin. And, you know, there's also

like the potential reputation hit that comes from a pump and dump, right? So if Donald Trump decides he wants to sell his reserves, because to be clear, only 20% of these coins are trading right now. So whatever the value is, is not fully diluted. If he decides he wants to sell some of those non-public coins, he can essentially tank the entire market and walk away. with a lot of money, which is one of the things that famously happens with meme coins, called rugging or pulling the rug out from underpeople. Is that legal? Great question.

It's murky territory. And there are a number of things that go on in crypto that would not be allowed in other markets that may very well be illegal, but that are often difficult to prosecute. You were telling me before we started chatting that crypto is inherently political. What do you mean by that? Essentially, Bitcoin started as a way to hate the federal government with money. Bitcoin comes out of the 2008 financial crisis. It was invented in part because the Satoshi Nakamoto entity didn't trust the banks. And, you know, it was started by a group of cypherpunks who wanted an alternative to, the dollar. And the dollar is actually politically incredibly important. You know, it's a, the world's reserve currency. It's a major source of American soft power. So creating an alternative to that, something that competes with the dollar is a political action. Investing in Bitcoin

is essentially, you know, giving the middle finger to the Fed. It's one of the reasons why you see a lot of libertarians in that space and a lot of anarchists. These are people who are not big fans of government generally and our government specifically. So, you know, in terms of the ideology involved, this is, in fact, inherently political. There is no way to talk about cryptocurrency without talking about politics. Do you think meme coins fit into the same bin there, or are they different in some way? I think they're different in the sense that they are a much smaller piece of this, right? Like, this is a very cynical way of expressing what you think the stock market is.

Like, in some ways, I think that the rise of mean coins and Ponziomics is a way of essentially critiquing the broader stock market and the broader way that we approach economics by saying, you know, actually the stock market's a joke. Actually, it's not really worth anything. Actually, it's all, you know, a rigged game. I mean, I've read the headlines that President Trump's coins are said to be worth billions now. How should I interpret that? Is that in real money, like that he could cash out and have?

No, is the short answer to that question. So again, I think I mentioned that this is not a fully diluted market. So if he were to try to cash out right now, the market would plunge. One of the things that happens to be true is I think 20% of the tokens are what's trading. And supply and demand sort of suggests that this is a limited supply, right? So if you add to the supply, the price goes down, the demand goes down. So if he were to sell all of his holdings right now, maybe he would make some money, but it wouldn't be that much. Liz, what are you going to be looking out for in the next, you know, whatever, months, year in the meme coin space? Is there anything you're sort of waiting to see, something that you're waiting to see happen? One of the things about crypto is that it is the most absurd part of the financial industry.

And so there are moments where you can sort of predict what will be happening. And so in the sense, like I said, I kind of think that all of these meme coins eventually go to zero. I just don't know when or how quickly. So that's one thing. But the other thing is, look, we're looking at a crypto boom. Crypto was huge in the last election. The industry spent a lot of money getting pro-crypto lawmakers, including Donald Trump, elected. I think they are expecting some kind of payoff in that, you know, whether that's legislation that gives them a friendly regulatory regime or a head of the SEC who's friendlier to crypto than Gary Gensler was.

One of the things that I'm trying to track is just sort of the serious piece underlying this, because the Bitcoin ETF suggests an interest from, the broader financial market in this space. And, you know, just today, BlackRock went on, I think it was CNBC, to say that they want to tokenize securities. That would be a significant change to have something as establishes BlackRock operating the crypto space in this particular way. It would bring the real financial system a lot closer to the crypto system. And the two of those things have been relatively divorced, although they'd have. have been getting closer. And like the last time we had a big crypto crash, it took out two real world banks. So, you know, I'm just watching to see where and how this develops, because

obviously there is a lot of political power in play. Hmm. It's fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to explain this to us. Yeah, my pleasure. Liz Lapato is a senior writer at The Verge. And that is about all we have time for. Lots of folks helped make the show happen, including Jason Rosenberg. George Harper. Kathleen Davis. Shoshana Bucksbaum.

I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.