Sharon Alfonse (2:28)

I'm Sharon Alfonse.

John Wertheim (2:30)

I'm John Wertheim.

Cecilia Vega (2:31)

I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora o'. Donnell.

Leslie Stahl (2:34)

I'm Leslie Stahl. Those stories and in our last minute, one of this country's greatest athletes reflects on what brings out the best in America. Tonight on 60 Minutes.

Anderson Cooper (2:53)

Going outside is so in. During Springfest at Lowes for a limited time, get extra big deals on select Holland Pavers. Three for $1 plus save $70 on a char broil performance. Four burner grill now $179. And chef up shareables for your whole crew. Picture perfect patios and good food. Yes, please. Our best lineup is here at Lowe's. Valid through 3:30, while supplies last selection varies by location. Paver offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii.

Scott Pelley (3:22)

This episode is brought to you by ebay. On ebay, behind every car and part is a story waiting to be shared. I read about this guy who bought a nearly scrapped 2020 Porsche Cayman. He rebuilt the whole thing, all with parts he found on ebay. And now that Cayman is out tearing up the track. From Toyota to Ash and Martins, ebay has thousands of cars and the largest online selection of vehicle parts and accessories. EBay, things people love.

John Wertheim (3:52)

Last week, President Trump postponed a summit with his Chinese counterpart on account of the war with Iran. When Trump and Xi Jinping do meet, here's an agenda item bound to figure rare earth elements. Right now, China holds a near monopoly over these strategic metals that are key components in so much that makes the modern world go smartphones, robotics, EVs. Also fighter jets, drones and radar technology. That is China controls materials essential to America's ability to wage war. Tonight, the story of an American company confronting this elemental crisis. It mines rare earth elements, processes them and makes them into superpowered magnets. And it's part owned by us American taxpayers in an unusual deal crafted by the federal government. An hour southwest of Las Vegas, in the guts of the Mojave Mountain Pass, California, might be the ultimate front of our trade war with China. This massive cavity in the ground. Behold, the only active rare earth mine in the US this is an unlikely battleground. Are we stepping on rare earths as we speak?

Scott Pelley (5:03)

Yes. Everywhere you look is rare earths.

John Wertheim (5:06)

And Michael Rosenthal and James Latinsky are the unlikely men in charge. Two Floridians in the snow. Two finance types suddenly trafficking in mining and metallurgy. You have no background in geology and now you're running the biggest rare earth planet in the US this is just

Scott Pelley (5:26)

such an important site. And the idea that this entire supply chain was on the other side of the world. In China, it just occurred to us that someone had to help fix this problem.

John Wertheim (5:36)

The Trump administration is keenly aware of the problem of China's rare earth dominance. Doug Burgum is Secretary of the Interior.

Scott Pelley (5:44)

If you have a cell phone, have a laptop, if you drive a car, then you're touching rare earth minerals and rare earth magnets. It's essential to everyday life, but it's also essential to aerospace, telecom, defense systems.

John Wertheim (5:59)

Yes, defense systems. According to the military, one F35 fighter jet contains about 100 pounds of rare earths incorporated into its various parts. Just to be clear, the US Defense industry is subject to the whims of China and Xi Jinping for military technology.

Scott Pelley (6:18)

Well, this is one of the reasons why President Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council with a broad set of objectives. One of those was to make sure that we had secure supply chains for critical and rare earth minerals.

John Wertheim (6:30)

Right now, we don't have secure supply chains of rare earths because China has cornered the market.

Scott Pelley (6:35)

They also weaponize it because if anybody in the rest of the free world said, hey, we're going to start mining or we're going to start refining, then they would target that particular mineral, dump a quantity onto the market, drive the price down, and companies, including US Companies that were profitable, suddenly became unprofitable.

John Wertheim (6:52)

Before we proceed, let's dispense with the misnomer. Rare earths aren't rare. Here's what is. Rare sites with high enough concentrations of rare earths and accessible enough locations to make extraction worthwhile. In their purest form, rare earths aren't rocks, but elemental metals. Deep cuts on the periodic table numbers 57 through 71 in 2 others for those scoring at home.

Julie Klinger (7:17)

Lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium.

John Wertheim (7:22)

Julie Klinger is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a rare earths expert who's visited mines worldwide and written extensively on the subject. What are their qualities?

Julie Klinger (7:34)

The thing that distinguishes rare earth elements are their fantastic magnetic, conductive and optical properties. So they're used often the way you might use spices in cooking, because if you add just a little bit of a certain rare earth element, say, to a magnet, that enables that magnet to be both very small and very powerful.

John Wertheim (7:54)

Geologists found rare earths at mountain pass in 1949. By the 60s, individual rare earths were being mined, separated and utilized, not least europium, which enhanced the color red in early television sets. CBS presents this program in color. Then, in 1982, researchers found that another neodymium strengthens magnets.

Julie Klinger (8:19)

And these super high powered magnets are used in everything from making your cell phone buzz to the navigation components for drones and smart bombs to high speed rail and electric vehicles.

John Wertheim (8:32)

For decades, Mountain Pass was the world's rare earth mine. But gradually, then suddenly, mining and magnet making began moving offshore. Familiar story. China could do it cheaper. The US Disinvested in rare earths.

Julie Klinger (8:47)

Absolutely.

Scott Pelley (8:47)

Why?

Julie Klinger (8:48)

It's a dirty business. It's a risky business. It's a difficult business to really break even.

John Wertheim (8:55)

In the 1990s, Mountain Pass fell victim to Economics and to environmental regulators. After radioactive water leaked into the desert, the mine languished for a decade until a new company, Molycore, tried unsuccessfully to compete with China and revive the the business. James Latinsky was running a Chicago hedge fund looking for value in distressed companies. When MollyCorp filed for bankruptcy in 2015, Latinsky glimpsed opportunity.

Scott Pelley (9:23)

When you're running a hedge fund, there's not much tangible to it. You're moving numbers on a screen. And then I made the mistake of going out and looking at the site,

John Wertheim (9:32)

actually seeing what your investment looked like.

Scott Pelley (9:34)

Yes. And I was just blown away by the scale of the assets.

John Wertheim (9:39)

The assets? This massive open pit, these concentric circles. A mine 3,000ft across, 600ft deep, with one of the world's richest deposits. Latinsky turned to Michael Rosenthal, then working for a New York hedge fund. The two were close friends growing up, and they decided to partner. You appreciate the absurdity of the story, for sure.

Scott Pelley (10:03)

Two hedge fund guys buy a mine. What could go wrong?

John Wertheim (10:06)

For a while, plenty. When they bought the mine in 2017, it was underwater financially, and literally 30 million gallons had puddled at the bottom. There were only eight employees. They called their new company MP Materials and got the mine back up and running. Blasting earth, then crushing rocks into gravel, then milling it into fine powder. Latinsky took over the business as CEO, while Rosenthal spent long days on site becoming an expert on rare earth mining and refining. How do you characterize a division of labor here?

Scott Pelley (10:42)

I get dirty, and Jim explains what we're doing today.

John Wertheim (10:46)

Mountain Pass employs more than 700. Rosenthal manages the operation. I cannot get over how extensive and intensive all of this process is once you're done with the actual mining.

Scott Pelley (11:02)

Yeah, the mining is really the easiest

John Wertheim (11:05)

part, the hard part, separating the rare earths from the rock and then each other. Two years ago, MP reached a milestone. After investing hundreds of millions of dollars, it was able to refine neodymium and praseodymium to 99.9% purity.

Scott Pelley (11:23)

This is the refined product. This is the money room.

John Wertheim (11:25)

This is it.

Scott Pelley (11:26)

This is it.

John Wertheim (11:27)

Each bag was worth around $120,000. There were 300 bags, roughly 36 million in inventory when we visited. So this fine powder will end up.

Scott Pelley (11:37)

Could end up in your pocket, could

John Wertheim (11:39)

end up in my iPhone. MP needed one last link to bypass China and reclaim the supply chain, making the final product those high powered rare earth magnets. So, in Fort Worth, Texas, MP built this. This facility where pure rare earth powder from Mountain Pass gets melted, cooled, compressed, diced, and eventually turned into well, these. In a matter of months, millions will be going into GM cars and into Apple products starting next year. MP was fulfilling its business plan, taking rare earths from mine to magnets. Then last Spring, it alchemized from a vertically integrated business to a pivotal player in our national security.

Cecilia Vega (12:21)

We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.

John Wertheim (12:25)

Last April, President Trump unveiled his global tariffs plan, so called Liberation Day. China retaliated to devastating effect, choking off rare earths to the US Ford Motors, for one, suddenly without magnets, had to temporarily stop making Explorer SUVs. After a series of trade truces between the US and China, the rare earth spigot came back on. Latinsky says few realize how close we were to economic catastrophe.

Scott Pelley (12:55)

There were major manufacturers that didn't even realize the extent of the rare earth magnets that they had in their supply chain. We were seeing the economy on the verge of shutdown.

John Wertheim (13:05)

With markets reeling, senior Trump administration officials summoned Latinsky and Rosenthal to Washington.

Scott Pelley (13:11)

We got called into the Pentagon and it was clear that there was a directive from the President to solve this problem as quickly as possible.

John Wertheim (13:19)

What did the government want from you?

Scott Pelley (13:21)

The Pentagon wanted a Manhattan style project to accelerate the entire supply chain of rare earth magnetics in the country.

John Wertheim (13:29)

That's the analogy.

Scott Pelley (13:30)

Those exact words were used. Manhattan Project or Operation Warp speed. We've got to work to scale up everything that you're doing as quickly as we possibly can.

John Wertheim (13:40)

A Manhattan project for rare earths resulted in an unusual deal. The Pentagon agreed to inject $400 million into MP Materials and took a 15% ownership stake. So we Americans are all in the rare earth business now. Plus, critically, the deal came with a guaranteed 10 year price floor for rare earths. So even if China tries to flood the market again, driving down prices, MP is covered. Has there ever been anything like this?

Scott Pelley (14:10)

Well, exactly like this. Maybe not. But if you look back, whether it was the railroads or aluminum for aviation prior to World War II or the semiconductor industry, there's actually a long tradition of really critical industries where our country needs to bring online infrastructure. And I think this is one of those industries.

John Wertheim (14:30)

And the government had one more stipulation for ramp up rare earth magnet production tenfold. To do so, MP is building an even bigger rare earth magnet factory also in Texas that it says could produce enough to meet the country's needs. It's expected to be complete in 2028. Still, as we sit here today, what percentage of the world's rare earth magnets are made in China?

Scott Pelley (14:54)

Well north of 90%.

John Wertheim (14:56)

So China in effect can still hold the world hostage here.

Scott Pelley (14:59)

They currently do.

John Wertheim (15:01)

Back in Washington, Secretary Burgum has been a vocal supporter of stockpiling America's critical minerals. He defends the MP deal even if it strays from the principles of market capitalism. You're talking about equity positions in private companies and price floors and in this case a demand that production increases 10x tenfold. Wait a second. That has the whiff of socialism.

Scott Pelley (15:24)

I wouldn't call it socialism. I'd certainly call it pragmatism. Because free markets work, but they don't work if you have an adversary that controls a monopoly that control the price.

John Wertheim (15:36)

You're talking China.

Scott Pelley (15:37)

I'm talking about China. There's no market setting the price. It's China setting the price. To get this industry started again, we have to do some things to kick start the private capital.

John Wertheim (15:47)

This kind of industrial policy you're talking about, does this happen? But for China's retaliation to last April,

Scott Pelley (15:54)

I think it was a catalyst. Frankly, we probably needed a crisis to wake up. And so I think if there's a silver lining in the sense what happened last year was a big time crisis that we needed.

John Wertheim (16:08)

I'm struck by how quickly the economics bleed into geopolitics. If China says listen, we're going to go invade Taiwan and if you stand in our way, we're shutting off our

Scott Pelley (16:19)

rare earth magnets, well, that's the risk as it stands today. We need permission from the Chinese government to make things. We need permission from the Chinese government to make military things. And the practical reality is that is not an acceptable condition. And so we have to change this dynamic.

John Wertheim (16:41)

The current U. S. China trade truce is set to expire in eight months. Absent a new deal, our rare earth supply, short term anyway, remains vulnerable.

Anderson Cooper (16:59)

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Leslie Stahl (17:28)

the war in Iran is highlighting the importance of ships. Not just warships, but cargo vessels like those carrying oil or gas trapped near the Strait of Hormuz. But American shipbuilding is in shambles due to decades of shortsighted policies and neglect. Our submarine building program is sluggish and our commercial shipbuilding is nearly extinct. China makes roughly 1,000 cargo ships a year. The U.S. maybe three. The Trump administration has called this a national security crisis. But can this ship be turned around? This is the Philadelphia shipyard, one of only two left in the US Building large commercial cargo ships. Once a symbol of American might and innovation, ships built here helped win our independence in the 18th century and World War II in the 20th.

John Wertheim (18:30)

$80 million worth of floating defense.

Leslie Stahl (18:34)

This shipyard has become a symbol of American industrial decline, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals. And it's still uses a crane from 1942. Now, talk about a metaphor of how far behind we are.

Scott Pelley (18:52)

A lot of times people call it a dinosaur.

Leslie Stahl (18:55)

What else is a dinosaur?

Scott Pelley (18:57)

Almost everything that you've seen out there.

Leslie Stahl (18:59)

David Kim, the new head of the Philly shipyard, showed us around. He works for Hanwha, a giant shipmaker from South Korea, the country making most ships after China. Hanwha bought the yard in 2024 for $100 million, then poured in another hundred million and tasked Kim, a Korean American born and bred in Texas, to bring it into the 21st century. How many ships do you actually make here?

Scott Pelley (19:30)

Here at the Hanwha Philly shipyard, we deliver one to one and a half ships a year, versus our yard in Korea, where they deliver basically one a week.

Cecilia Vega (19:40)

What?

Leslie Stahl (19:40)

One a year for delivery versus one a week?

Michael Coulter (19:44)

That's correct.

Leslie Stahl (19:46)

Not building ships in the US is considered a national security threat because if there's a conflict with China, for instance, Beijing could weaponize its substantial merchant fleet and cut us off from global goods. Hanwha plans to spend $5 billion in February and has already sent 50 trainers from Korea to teach American workers.

Scott Pelley (20:12)

Our aspiration is to get to up to 20 ships a year here at the shipyard.

Leslie Stahl (20:16)

So we come back in two years, how different will it look?

Scott Pelley (20:20)

You'll see robots, you will see automation equipment. And we're looking to grow the workforce by call it 7 to 10,000 people.

Leslie Stahl (20:30)

So. Sounds great. Only there's a huge shortage in the US of skilled labor in shipbuilding, including welders and pipefitters. This work is grueling, freezing in winter, scorching in summer, and it's dangerous. And while the yard has a training program, it can only train 20 or so new hires at a time. And it takes three years. Still, apprentices Justin, Jeff, and Meg told us this beats their old jobs.

Scott Pelley (21:02)

I worked at Amazon as a grocery picker.

Cecilia Vega (21:05)

Before this job, I was a cake decorator at a bakery.

Leslie Stahl (21:08)

And a nanny.

Cecilia Vega (21:09)

And a nanny as well. Yes. I work many jobs.

Leslie Stahl (21:12)

If you were to pitch this job and this place to A friend. What would you say?

Cecilia Vega (21:19)

I would tell my friend that instead of paying out of pocket to go

Leslie Stahl (21:24)

to a trade school, you're getting paid

Cecilia Vega (21:26)

while you learn here.

Leslie Stahl (21:28)

The entire time they pay you?

Cecilia Vega (21:30)

Yes.

Leslie Stahl (21:31)

You know, and health care.

Cecilia Vega (21:32)

And health care, which is amazing.

Leslie Stahl (21:35)

But aren't the conditions really harsh?

Scott Pelley (21:37)

Not the easiest work, like I go home. Granted, I'm more tired, but it's more fulfilling to me. Makes you feel like you're something, part of something bigger.

Leslie Stahl (21:48)

But not. Not only are workers scarce and the yard outdated, the Philly shipyard has to bring key components to the US Such as propellers and even the engine. So ships that take six months to build in Korea or China can take twice as long here and cost five times as much. And who will buy them?

Michael Coulter (22:13)

There's no doubt that we have challenges and headwinds, but I also think we have a unique moment in time.

Leslie Stahl (22:18)

Michael Coulter, who's Hanwha's top executive in charge of US Operations, says the way to lower prices is scale up production. So you're saying if we build more ships, then the cost per ship will come down significantly? It's. So it is busy. He took us to Hanwha shipyard in Korea, where nine ships are being built at once, four in a row. Like Lego sets the size of football fields. Steel chunks bigger than buildings hover over the ground. They're lifted above the water, or they just glide by. He showed us how far ahead they are technologically. Rows and rows of robots. But even with all the automation, the human workforce keeps growing. There are over 26,000 workers on site, many getting around on low tech because this place is so vast. And the yard keeps hiring, training 400 workers at once, way more than the 20 in Philly. And they're taught, using cutting edge virtual reality. He's learning to paint. It's a dance of tech. Cranes, trucks, and bikes. And this yard also builds military vessels, including submarines, which the US Desperately needs since our fleet is aging and we can barely make new ones.

Michael Coulter (24:02)

From a Hanwha perspective, we build great

Leslie Stahl (24:05)

submarines here in Korea.

Michael Coulter (24:07)

Here in Korea, yes. We have told the US Government that if they so wish, we will build submarines for them in the United States and in Philadelphia, just like we do in Korea.

Leslie Stahl (24:16)

Is the ultimate goal for your company to build nuclear submarines for the US Navy.

Michael Coulter (24:23)

Submarine program in the United States is heading in the wrong direction. And we think

Leslie Stahl (24:28)

another way Hanwha says it wants to help the US is with transporting liquefied natural gas, or lng, hoping to build these giant LNG tankers in Philly, the United States is the largest producer of natural gas, and yet we don't have any LNG ships that we make ourselves. Is that correct?

Michael Coulter (24:50)

That's correct. Not a single one.

Leslie Stahl (24:53)

This leads to an absurd situation. While we export LNG on foreign carriers to over 30 countries, one country we

Colin Graybaugh (25:02)

don't send it to is other parts of the United States.

Leslie Stahl (25:05)

Colin Graybaugh, a trade expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, explains that a century old law called the Jones act requires that any cargo shipped between U.S. ports, say from Baltimore to Boston or Seattle to Juneau, that cargo has to be on an American made ship. So if the cargo is lng, it has to be on an American made LNG ship. But we don't build any.

Colin Graybaugh (25:35)

That's right. There aren't any. Now, you might think this seems like an easy problem to solve. Go build the ship, transport the gas. Except the math doesn't work if you want to build one of those ships. In Asia, the cost is around $260 million. Here in the United States, about a billion dol.

Leslie Stahl (25:50)

Well, wait, are there parts of this country that cannot get natural gas because of this law?

Colin Graybaugh (25:56)

That's right. New England.

Leslie Stahl (25:58)

In winters, New England has to import pricier natural gas from abroad, even though it's extracted only a few states away.

Colin Graybaugh (26:07)

In fact, Puerto Rico imported Russian natural gas the same month as Russia invaded Ukraine.

Leslie Stahl (26:12)

No.

Colin Graybaugh (26:13)

So we take a stance against Russia. On the other hand, we're importing their energy, so that's something we have in abundance. You can't make this stuff up.

Leslie Stahl (26:20)

Last year, President Trump made solving our ship crisis a national priority, signing an executive order, creating a multi agency action plan and a White House Office of Shipbuilding we're way, way, way behind.

Cecilia Vega (26:34)

We used to build a ship a day and now we don't do a ship a year, practically.

Leslie Stahl (26:38)

But the White House has conflicting priorities. So here's the administration, it wants to build ships and they're putting huge tariffs, 50% on steel, which is the main component in a ship. What's wrong with that picture?

Colin Graybaugh (26:53)

Yes, this is one of the paradoxes of the Trump administration. We're artificially increasing the cost of building ships in this country.

Leslie Stahl (27:00)

So why can't shipbuilders just use American made steel? There's no tariffs on those.

Colin Graybaugh (27:07)

That's true. But when we put heavy tariffs on imported steel, we drive those costs up. That's a great opportunity for Americans to raise their own price. What we note is today American steel is roughly twice as expensive as steel in, say, China.

Leslie Stahl (27:22)

What you're saying is when the price of steel goes up because of tariffs, then the American steel manufacturer hikes the price of steel.

Colin Graybaugh (27:31)

These are profit oriented enterprises.

Leslie Stahl (27:35)

He actually thinks we should be able to just buy and use ships from our allies, South Korea, not build them. And he points to another conflicting White House priority, making it harder to grant skilled immigrants work visas.

Colin Graybaugh (27:51)

Traditionally, a lot of immigrants have been willing to do this kind of work, and yet we are turning our back on immigration, adopting a more hostile stance.

Leslie Stahl (27:59)

The administration seems to be fighting its own policy. Yes, it didn't help when last September, ICE raided a Korean battery plant in Georgia, alleging visa violations. Agents dragged off 300 Korean technicians and engineers in cuffs and chains despite their coming here to train American workers. Hanwha's Michael Coulter says this caused a backlash in Korea. Have you been assured that, that what happened in Georgia will not happen in Philadelphia?

Michael Coulter (28:34)

We've been assured that our visas are the right visas and our team is not going to be impacted.

Leslie Stahl (28:41)

The White House is committed to making ships here. So last year, when President Trump threatened to put tariffs on Korean imports, Korea's president offered instead to invest $150 billion to revive the US shipbuilding industry. Promising Philly is just the start.

Michael Coulter (29:02)

There's a recognition that the United States has a problem that Korea may be uniquely positioned to help.

Leslie Stahl (29:08)

That's like aid for the United States. Wow. Wouldn't it be more profitable and wiser if the United States just bought the ships from Korea?

Michael Coulter (29:19)

That doesn't solve the problem. At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity. The US Needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy.

Leslie Stahl (29:32)

The idea that we now rely on Korean expertise to help us build an industry that we need for national security reasons. Should we be ashamed of ourselves? Should we feel weak?

Michael Coulter (29:48)

I don't think we should be fearful or feel weak. We are in a shipbuilding crisis in the United States, and every American should be aware of that. But that doesn't mean that it's not solvable.

Leslie Stahl (29:59)

We once deployed ships to save South Korea. Now we've been forced to turn to South Korea to save us. In a statement to 60 Minutes, the White House said, quote, no president has done more to bolster American maritime power. This past week, with gas prices soaring, the President suspended the Jones act for 60 days to ease the transport of oil and gas within the US.

Anderson Cooper (30:36)

Everyone knows the old adage about dogs being man's best friend, but you may not know that dogs might also be one of man's best hopes. To treat age related illnesses. That's because our canines develop many of the same diseases we do, including dementia. Dogs brains are a lot like ours, so studying how dementia and other diseases naturally progress in them may also help us. That's what the Dog Aging project is all about. Unlocking secrets to a longer, healthier life for humans and our four legged friends.

Cecilia Vega (31:09)

What do you think?

Sharon Alfonse (31:10)

You ready to do your test?

Anderson Cooper (31:12)

At hundreds of vet clinics and hospitals around the country, including here at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, people are bringing in their dogs.

Cecilia Vega (31:24)

Does he ever seem more irritable? Yes.

Anderson Cooper (31:27)

The Dog Aging project is a collaboration of dog owners, scientists and veterinarians studying dogs, more than 50,000 of them so far. By collecting data on their diets and exercise and analyzing blood samples and doing MRIs of dogs brains. Did you always want to be a doctor? Matt Kaeberline, a biologist who spent decades trying to understand and reverse the causes of aging, co founded the project in 2014. Where did the idea of the dog Aging project come from?

Scott Pelley (31:56)

I had this light bulb moment which I still remember vividly. I realized, oh my God, we know about three or four or five ways to slow aging in laboratory animals. Some of those are going to work in dogs.

Anderson Cooper (32:08)

You think that's possible?

Scott Pelley (32:10)

Absolutely. I have no doubt that's possible. The biology of aging is so conserved or shared across the animal kingdom. Much of this works the same way

Anderson Cooper (32:19)

in dogs, much of it works the

Scott Pelley (32:20)

same way in people.

Leslie Stahl (32:21)

You're okay.

Anderson Cooper (32:23)

To help study how the brain ages, Kaeberlein recruited Stephanie McGrath, a veterinary neurologist from Colorado State University. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that there are neurologists from for animals.

Sharon Alfonse (32:34)

Yes. A lot of people are surprised.

Anderson Cooper (32:36)

And you believe looking at dogs and looking at dogs brains can help us not only help dogs, but humans as well?

Sharon Alfonse (32:44)

Yes, of course, absolutely. There's no doubt.

Anderson Cooper (32:47)

Why?

Sharon Alfonse (32:48)

Because right now we are using mice and we are putting them through treatment trials and then we go directly to human trials.

Anderson Cooper (32:56)

I've read that as many as 90% of the things that work in mice do not end up working in humans.

Sharon Alfonse (33:02)

Right.

Anderson Cooper (33:03)

So to have something in between would be hugely beneficial.

Sharon Alfonse (33:07)

Right. And not just another species, but a species that very closely mimic naturally occurring diseases of aging in humans. Cancer, dementia, all these diseases that we see as humans age occur in dogs.

Anderson Cooper (33:20)

One reason they live alongside us and are exposed to the same environments. They exercise with us, eat our food, drink the same water. Also key, McGrath says, is the fact that dogs have shorter lives because they Age faster than humans.

Sharon Alfonse (33:38)

We can get a ton of information that would take decades to do in humans.

Anderson Cooper (33:42)

In a human being, if you wanted to do a lifelong study, obviously you would have to do it from the age of 1 to 60. 70, 80.

Sharon Alfonse (33:49)

Exactly. So many decades versus 5, 10 years. So we just check to make sure his sensory's good.

Anderson Cooper (33:56)

McGrath has been tracking hundreds of dogs to see how their cognitive ability changes as they age. Including 12 year old Murphy, a German shepherd. Poodle mix.

Cecilia Vega (34:06)

He gets his puppy zoomies about once a week now versus once a day.

Sharon Alfonse (34:11)

Okay, all right. They're still in there, though.

Leslie Stahl (34:13)

They're still there.

Anderson Cooper (34:14)

For Pat Schultz, like many of the dog owners we met, enrolling Murphy in the dog aging project was personal. Her husband Bill suffered from Alzheimer's disease, progressing to the point he stopped recognizing Pat as his wife. What do you do in a situation like that?

Cecilia Vega (34:30)

Just go along with it. He asked me out on a date.

Scott Pelley (34:33)

Really?

Cecilia Vega (34:33)

Yeah.

Leslie Stahl (34:34)

Can we go on a date?

John Wertheim (34:34)

Sure.

Cecilia Vega (34:35)

Let's go have dinner, you know.

Anderson Cooper (34:37)

Throughout his decline, Murphy was Bill's constant companion. Murphy was a caregiver in some way.

Cecilia Vega (34:44)

Murphy's like his nanny dog. Bill would forget his phone. I have a tracking collar on Murphy. So as long as Murphy had that tracking collar on, I knew where Bill was.

Anderson Cooper (34:53)

So while Bill is dealing with Alzheimer's, you hear about the dog aging project.

Cecilia Vega (34:58)

I think I was looking at clinical studies and I found something about dog studies. I thought, oh, dog studies. I had never heard those. You know, Murphy was getting older, knowing that he's a big dog. They don't have as long a lifespan usually.

Sharon Alfonse (35:12)

Go ahead, puppy.

Anderson Cooper (35:13)

For the past three years, Murphy has undergone testing to assess his physical and mental fitness. In games like these, dogs are shown where a treat is hidden and seconds later allowed to go and get it.

Cecilia Vega (35:26)

Okay.

Anderson Cooper (35:27)

If they can remember where it is. When it was Murphy's turn, he struggled, wanting to stay with Pat, Too anxious to do the test.

Leslie Stahl (35:38)

Puppy, look.

Scott Pelley (35:39)

Okay.

Anderson Cooper (35:41)

On the second try, he got a little turned around, but eventually found the truth.

Scott Pelley (35:48)

There you go.

Cecilia Vega (35:48)

Atta boy. Good job.

Anderson Cooper (35:51)

The anxiety that Murphy showed, is that a potential sign of dementia?

Sharon Alfonse (35:55)

Yes, is the short answer. In the last few visits at csu, he's really progressed in terms of his challenges with his tasks both here and at home.

Anderson Cooper (36:06)

Another dog, Ralph, was also tested. At 14, he's already shown signs of advanced dementia.

Leslie Stahl (36:13)

Puppy, look.

Anderson Cooper (36:14)

Ralph quickly forgot about the treat, wandered off, and picked up a piece of lint off the floor. All the information collected in the dog aging project, including from these tests, Goes into a public database accessible to researchers around the world. It's been used in more than 50 scientific studies so far, Many of which found correlations between lifestyle environment and disease risk. One finding dogs that live with other dogs appear to suffer from fewer diseases. And when it comes to cognitive decline, dogs that don't exercise are found to have a six times greater chance of developing dementia. When some of the dogs in the aging project die, their brains are donated and examined. Dr. Dirk Kean is a neuropathologist from the University of Washington. For the past 20 years, he studied thousands of human brains looking for causes of Alzheimer's. His motivation for participating in the dog aging project was watching his mother suffer from Alzheimer's and also seeing his dog Spring decline from what looked like to him the same disease, what some call doggy dementia.

Dirk Kean (37:26)

So that spring, when she was a

Anderson Cooper (37:28)

healthy, happy dog, tongue out, tail wagging,

Dirk Kean (37:31)

she was a happy dog. Yeah. And this is Spring near the end of her life, she would get confused and sort of lost. She would stare at walls. She would just stop and stare into space. She would lean against things. This happens to people. It's not just memory when we start to have dementia. Dementia is a very complex thing that includes confusion. It includes loss of the ability to remember sort of spatial references. Very similar to what we're seeing in dogs. Happens in people.

Anderson Cooper (37:54)

This is half of a human brain.

Dirk Kean (37:56)

This is half a human brain.

Anderson Cooper (37:57)

That's a dog brain.

Dirk Kean (37:58)

That's the dog brain.

Anderson Cooper (37:59)

Wow. Dr. Keene showed us how similar dogs brains are to humans.

Dirk Kean (38:04)

You can see the dog brain has the same frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe.

Anderson Cooper (38:09)

It's the same basic shape as the human brain.

Dirk Kean (38:11)

Very, very similar.

Anderson Cooper (38:12)

And it turns out dementia changes brain size and structure in very similar ways in both species.

Dirk Kean (38:18)

This is a person in their 80s who was not demented. This is a person who was in their 70s who was demented. And so the most important sort of thing to notice is how much different in size they are. I'm gonna let you hold this, if that's okay. So just grab on there.

Scott Pelley (38:32)

Yep.

Dirk Kean (38:33)

You can sort of feel how much

Anderson Cooper (38:34)

difference, the weight difference between a healthy brain and an atrophied brain is stunning. As disease kills off neurons, the brain shrinks, and the space in the middle cavity enlarges. I mean, it looks like something has completely fallen out here.

Dirk Kean (38:50)

Yeah, it's remarkable.

Anderson Cooper (38:52)

It's so depressing. Dementia in dogs also results in enlarged spaces and brain shrinkage. This is spring's brain under a microscope. Spring's brain One of the first to be donated to the Dog Aging Project shows beta amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's.

Dirk Kean (39:07)

And this is a human brain, and

Anderson Cooper (39:09)

it looks strikingly similar to the plaques in a human brain as well. Progress in preventing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, which will affect an estimated 40% of Americans over 55, has been slow. The Dog Aging Project hopes to change that by testing the drug rapamycin in mice. It's been shown to slow cognitive decline and increase life expectancy by a remarkable 60%. That's led some longevity researchers and influencers to suggest rapamycin for human use. To understand whether it might work in dogs. Julie Moreno, a molecular biologist from Colorado State University, helped conduct a pilot study of 12 dogs, all with signs of dementia. 10 year old Qbert was among those given a placebo. 13 year old Monkey received rapamycin after the dogs died. Moreno examined their brains and found that monkey's brain showed fewer microglial cells which produce inflammation commonly associated with dementia.

Cecilia Vega (40:13)

So if you just kind of focus

Sharon Alfonse (40:14)

in on this side, you see quite a bit of those teal colored microglial

Cecilia Vega (40:19)

cells and then if you look over

Sharon Alfonse (40:20)

here, you just see less.

Cecilia Vega (40:22)

Right.

Sharon Alfonse (40:22)

Like there's just less number of them.

Anderson Cooper (40:24)

Two other dogs receiving rapamycin, including Ralph, have since died. Their brains also showed fewer cells associated with inflammation. So rapamycin, at least in this study, worked on dogs?

Cecilia Vega (40:39)

Yeah.

Anderson Cooper (40:39)

What'd you think when you first saw this?

Julie Klinger (40:41)

I was super excited.

Anderson Cooper (40:42)

You were? What's your hope in doing this study?

Julie Klinger (40:45)

If it works in a dog and

Cecilia Vega (40:46)

it's safe and it's helping their cognition, then maybe it would help humans.

Anderson Cooper (40:51)

The Dog Aging Project is now conducting a larger clinical trial funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, giving hundreds of dogs, including Murphy, either a placebo or rapamycin to see if the drug can extend life.

Sharon Alfonse (41:06)

The first ever longevity drug on the market.

Anderson Cooper (41:09)

There are three other drugs being developed by the for profit company Loyal, a biotech startup founded in 2019 by 31 year old Celine Haliwa.

Sharon Alfonse (41:17)

Does she like how it tastes? My vision is that this is, you know, it's a daily beef flavored pill that are given preventatively to keep them healthier longer, similar to a statin, you know, for older Americans.

Anderson Cooper (41:29)

And you think it will actually help extend a dog's life?

Cecilia Vega (41:31)

Yeah.

Anderson Cooper (41:32)

How long?

Sharon Alfonse (41:33)

Approximately one healthier year of life. Maybe it'll be more, maybe it'll be less.

Anderson Cooper (41:37)

One of their drugs in a clinical trial is being given to dogs over the age of 10 who are monitored for signs of aging. The FDA has signed off on the drug's safety data and says it has a reasonable expectation of effectiveness. But final results from the trial won't be known for several years. That extra year would be a healthier year than otherwise.

Sharon Alfonse (41:58)

An aging drug is about delaying and slowing the rate of decline that a dog or a human has over time to give them more healthier years. It's not something that you would give to a dog or a human on their deathbed to give them another year. It doesn't work like that.

Anderson Cooper (42:14)

Silicon Valley is betting big on longevity. Haliwa's company has raised more than $250 million to bring its drugs to market.

Sharon Alfonse (42:22)

If we can achieve this, this is a massive multi billion dollar company. If we only do that, we're all happy. But oh, by the way, this also unlocks the possibility of us working on human longevity one day. I think going dogs first is the fastest way to work on and understand the biology of human aging.

Anderson Cooper (42:40)

After a long struggle, Pat Schultz's husband Bill died two years ago due to complications from Alzheimer's as part of the dog aging project. She won't know for another few years whether Murphy got the rapamycin or not. But for now, she told us she's simply focused on making sure they both age as best they can. You've cared for a human with Alzheimer's. You're caring for a dog in this study who you know is aging. What have you noticed in terms of similarities?

Cecilia Vega (43:09)

The thing I notice is that they both need to be loved and cared for. Just holding Bill's hand and patting his hand was enough to just to decrease that anxiety, decrease that fear that, you know was there.

Anderson Cooper (43:24)

And that works with Murphy, too.

Cecilia Vega (43:25)

And that works with Murphy, too.

Leslie Stahl (43:27)

Yep.

Cecilia Vega (43:32)

Good boy, Ralph. What Ralph's life meant for science and his family. I mean, your pets are family too, right? @60minutesovertime.com. The last minute of 60 minutes.

Leslie Stahl (43:52)

No American woman has won more Olympic medals than swimmer Katie Ledecky. Fourteen total, including nine gold. Now she's training for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. We asked Ledecky, as an Olympian, what has she learned about America?

Julie Klinger (44:13)

What I have learned over time as a member of Team USA is that we are a nation of strivers that embraces competition of all sorts. We are a very prideful nation in how we compete, where that striving and competitive spirit, when harnessed correctly, brings out the best in us and shows us the best of the human spirit. I've learned that sports test our determination, our resilience, and our discipline. Sports teach us every day that anything is possible, that when we try and when we give our best effort, that we can overcome obstacles. I grew up swimming in summer community pools in my home county. I have trained and swum throughout the country in numerous places. And what I have seen in so many different communities is that sport in America is at its best when it's joy and fun. And, yes, its challenges bring us together.

Leslie Stahl (45:06)

I'm Leslie Stahl. We'll be back next week with Another edition of 60 Minutes

Cecilia Vega (45:14)

on Big Lives. We take a single cultural icon, people

Anderson Cooper (45:17)

like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard,

Scott Pelley (45:20)

and we pull apart the story behind the image.

John Wertheim (45:23)

And we do this by digging through

Scott Pelley (45:25)

the BBC's vast archives, discovering forgotten interviews

John Wertheim (45:29)

that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture.

Anderson Cooper (45:32)

We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes.

Cecilia Vega (45:36)

I'm Emmanuel Joci.

Scott Pelley (45:37)

I'm Kai Wright.

Cecilia Vega (45:38)

And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts. I'm back. I'm really back.

John Wertheim (45:47)

School Spirits returned. Why am I here?

Cecilia Vega (45:50)

Not dead, right?

Sharon Alfonse (45:51)

Disruption on this campus will not be. If I look crazy, it's because that's how I feel.

Cecilia Vega (46:00)

I don't know how to live in two worlds.

Scott Pelley (46:02)

Secrets lurk. There are others beneath the surface. They're not like us. We need to get out of here now. School Spirits new season now streaming only on Paramount plus.