05/24/2026: Booms, Busts and Bubbles, Sculpting Evolution, The Payam Method

Summary

60 Minutes Podcast Summary

Episode: Booms, Busts and Bubbles, Sculpting Evolution, The Payam Method
Original Airdate: May 25, 2026

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Overview

This multifaceted episode of 60 Minutes explores the unstable optimism and lurking dangers beneath current financial markets, dives deep into a scientific experiment using gene editing to fight Lyme disease by engineering wild mice, and profiles a revolutionary new approach to piano education that turns strict discipline on its head to foster joy and creativity in young musicians. The episode closes with a poignant reflection from actress Sally Field on the continuing relevance of the U.S. Constitution.

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Booms, Busts and Bubbles: Are We Heading Toward Another Crash?

Reported by Lesley Stahl & Anderson Cooper, featuring Andrew Ross Sorkin and Larry Fink

Key Points & Insights:

• The resilience and continuous climb of the current stock market trigger echoes of the Roaring Twenties—are we boom times or on the verge of disaster?
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin, renowned financial journalist, compares today's market to the prelude to the 1929 crash.
  • “I'm anxious that we are at prices that may not feel sustainable. We are either living through some kind of remarkable boom … or we're reliving 1929.” (Anderson Cooper, 06:21)
• Discussion of the recent AI-driven boom and parallels with historic market bubbles:
  • “There are hundreds of billions of dollars that are being invested today in artificial intelligence. This is either a gold rush or a sugar rush.” (Anderson Cooper, 07:50)
• Sorkin explains the origins of market speculation and debt, with a history lesson about credit and the downfall it enabled in 1929.
• Regulatory guardrails created post-1929 are eroding:
  • “The Consumer Protection Bureau practically doesn't exist anymore. … There's speculation in the market today. … all of that's happening against the backdrop of the guardrails coming off.” (Anderson Cooper, 09:56–10:15)
• Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, advocates for giving regular Americans more access to private investments via retirement plans—a democratization of markets that may increase risk.
  • “But what the markets will teach you over the last hundred years… if you have a long-term horizon, you're going to do fine. And a diversified portfolio is essential.” (Larry Fink, 13:53)
• Crypto's evolving role: from pariah to portfolio diversifier, yet also a petri dish for “meme coin” manipulation.
  • “Two hours later, somebody makes a Sorkin coin and all of a sudden this Sorkin coin is now worth millions of dollars.” (Sorkin recounting his own experience, 15:43)
• Business leaders are “very scared to speak out publicly about anything” due to regulatory and political risks. (Anderson Cooper, 16:25)
• The inescapable warning:
  • “The answer is we will have a crash. I just can't tell you when and I can't tell you how deep, but … we will have a crash.” (Andrew Ross Sorkin, 17:36)

Notable Quotes:

• “We are either living through some kind of remarkable boom … or everything's overpriced, or we're reliving 1929.” (Anderson Cooper, 06:21)
• “We're always being undone by bubbles.” (Lesley Stahl, 07:02)
• “This is either a gold rush or a sugar rush.” (Anderson Cooper, 07:50)
• “There is a role for crypto … It's an alternative for those looking to diversify.” (Larry Fink, 14:34)

Timestamps for Key Segments:

• Market Parallels, Speculation & AI: 04:44–08:14
• Evolution of Debt, Deregulation: 08:14–10:15
• Democratization & Retirement Risks: 10:15–14:19
• Crypto & Market Manipulation: 14:19–16:02
• CEO Fears, Political Links & Crash Inevitable: 16:18–17:54

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Sculpting Evolution: Using Genetic Engineering to Combat Lyme Disease

Reported by Scott Pelley, Dr. Timothy Lepry, Kevin Esvelt, Sam Telford

Key Points & Insights:

• Nantucket faces a “natural disaster” not of weather, but of Lyme disease, carried mostly by ticks and mice.
  • “The natural disaster in our area is… Lyme disease. … It is the one plague that might be severe enough that communities might want to engineer a wild organism.” (Dr. Timothy Lepry, 19:49)
• Pioneering scientists propose using CRISPR gene editing to immunize wild “white-footed” mice against Lyme, breaking the cycle between ticks, mice, and humans.
  • “The dream is that we can use new technologies to ensure that wild creatures can live in peace… without causing disease that makes people suffer.” (Dr. Lepry, 22:39)
• Explaining the process:
  • Gene for an antibody that blocks Lyme inserted into mouse embryos; immunity becomes heritable (“heritable immunization,” 27:32)
• Ethical and ecological implications discussed:
  • “We are absolutely speeding up evolution. And that's precisely why we have to be careful.” (Kevin Esvelt, 27:54)
• Strong emphasis on transparent, community-involved science:
  • "What I found heartening about this…is that pretty much everyone agrees that this is how we should go about developing these kinds of technologies, that it should not just be scientists…It should not just be scientists in their laboratories get a clever idea and then boom, it's there." (Dr. Lepry, 29:29)
• Concerns raised about unwitting changes to the ecosystem and food chain:
  • "Could a change in the field mouse lead to a change in the hawk? … I think that has to be shown.” (Bill Whitaker, 30:11)
• Dr. Lepry’s pragmatic philosophy:
  • “I'm not terribly fond of Mother Nature if she's going to give my kids disease…All of technology is saying to Mother Nature, you're beautiful and we appreciate you very much, and we need to conserve you, but we're not always happy with the way things work naturally, and so we're going to change it.” (Dr. Timothy Lepry, 30:21–30:40)

Notable Quotes:

• “We are absolutely speeding up evolution. And that's precisely why we have to be careful, because we are doing things that couldn't happen naturally.” (Esvelt, 27:57)
• “It is Lyme disease. … A plague that might be severe enough that communities might want to engineer a wild organism.” (Dr. Lepry, 19:49)

Timestamps for Key Segments:

• Introduction / Problem Statement: 18:23–20:07
• Scientific Solution & Process: 20:07–27:05
• Community Engagement & Debate: 28:07–31:46

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The PAYAM Method: Reinventing How Kids Learn—and Love—Piano

Reported by Bill Whitaker, Payam Kaskuday, Hans Zimmer, Hadi Partovi

Key Points & Insights:

• Traditional piano lessons are strict, stressful, and joyless for many kids—but teacher Payam Kaskuday asks: “Why can't it be fun?”
  • "Our students don't just learn piano, they love piano. And that's one of the biggest keys to it." (Payam Kaskuday, 03:01 & 33:43)
• The method: Beginners start with numbers and letters—no sheet music; music turns into accessible games; high emphasis on positive reinforcement (high-fives, celebrations).
• Astounding results: Instead of just 1–2% of students reaching “diploma” level after 12 years, 96% at PAYAM's school do so within about four years. (35:26)
• Joy precedes discipline: “Nobody will become phenomenal at anything unless they actually put in the time and energy. But when you actually enjoy what you're doing, you don't realize that you're putting in the time for that.” (Payam Kaskuday, 36:01)
• Students learn to compose at young ages and sweep competitions—the method is winning over both parents and high-profile backers (Hans Zimmer and Hadi Partovi).
  • Hans Zimmer: “Here's a man who figured out a way of giving children this opportunity to have absolute happiness. You know, love music and love themselves.” (41:54)
• Goal: take the PAYAM method national, expand access, and win over skeptics via parent enthusiasm rather than industry insiders.
• Parent testimonials stress increased confidence and happiness—not just musical skill.
  • “So I see my daughter Anya to be more confident and you feel good about yourself. So that is really different about this school.” (Parent, 44:28)
• Whitaker—a former reluctant piano student himself—tries a lesson, finds joy: “That was it. Finished. Level two. Amazing.” (45:33)

Notable Quotes:

• “Our students don't just learn piano, they love piano.” (Payam, 03:01; 33:43)
• “The operative word in music is, after all, play. So be playful.” (Bill Whitaker, 37:58)
• “To this day, I just remember these piano lessons as being horrible. And here's a man who figured out a way of giving children this opportunity to have absolute happiness.” (Hans Zimmer, 41:54)
• “Try it once and you'll understand.” (Payam, to skeptics, 45:05)

Timestamps for Key Segments:

• Introduction & Method Philosophy: 32:52–33:43
• Method in Action, Results: 34:35–36:14
• Learning Process, Progression: 36:21–37:48
• Competitions & Composition: 39:22–40:43
• Expansion Plans & Testimonials: 41:08–44:59

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Last Minute: Sally Field Reflects on Democracy

Actress Sally Field recalls memorizing the First Amendment as a child and how her understanding has deepened over time, especially as the nation marks 250 years of independence.

Key Points:

• The First Amendment as the foundation for democracy and the need for constant vigilance and protection.
  • “This fragile thing called democracy needs to be protected, that the brilliance of our Constitution begins with the words we the people.” (Sally Field, 46:17)
  • “I believe in the resilience of our Constitution and I believe in the goodness and strength of the people.”

Timestamps:

• Sally Field’s Reflection: 46:04–47:25

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “AI is either a gold rush or a sugar rush.” (Anderson Cooper, 07:50)
• “We are absolutely speeding up evolution.” (Kevin Esvelt, 27:57)
• “Our students don’t just learn piano, they love piano.” (Payam Kaskuday, 33:43)
• “Try it once and you’ll understand.” (Payam Kaskuday, 45:05)
• “This fragile thing called democracy needs to be protected.” (Sally Field, 46:17)

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Episode Flow at a Glance

• [04:44] Booms, Busts, and Bubbles—Financial markets’ perils and history with Sorkin and Fink
• [18:23] Sculpting Evolution—The fight against Lyme on Nantucket using engineered mice
• [32:52] The PAYAM Method—A joyful, winning approach to learning piano
• [46:04] Sally Field’s Last Word—Protecting democracy and the enduring power of the First Amendment

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This episode weaves together history, scientific innovation, education, and civic values—demonstrating both the risks of repeating the past and the optimism of creating better futures, in finance, health, the arts, and society at large.

Transcript

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[Lesley Stahl]

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[Lesley Stahl]

Do you think that we will have a crash? We thought it was a good time to check in with Andrew Ross Sorkin, one of the country's most influential financial reporters. He's written a book about the market crash a century ago. Are you scared?

[Anderson Cooper]

I'm anxious that we are at prices that may not feel sustainable. We are either living through some kind of remarkable boom or we're reliving 1929.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

The natural disaster in our area is not hurricanes or tornadoes or earthquakes. It is Lyme disease.

[Scott Pelley]

Genetic engineers believe they found a way to slow the spread of the debilitating disease. Cat it is amazing to see this. Tonight, a look at something that's never been attempted genetically engineering wild mice to prevent people from getting sick. Do you worry about fooling around with Mother Nature?

[Bill Whitaker]

It's a fairly safe bet that most kids taking piano lessons don't like them. Now along comes a piano teacher named Payam Kaskude.

[Payam Kaskuday]

If you learn 13 5, he's come

[Bill Whitaker]

up with a new method of teaching that has students loving their piano lessons.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Piano's not supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be strict. It's supposed to be stressful. And we're like, why? Our students don't just learn piano, they love piano.

[Lesley Stahl]

I'm Leslie Stahl.

[Bill Whitaker]

I'm Bill Whitaker.

[Anderson Cooper]

I'm Anderson Cooper.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

I'm Sharon Alfonsi.

[Bill Whitaker]

JOHN I'm John Wertheim.

[Lesley Stahl]

I'm Cecilia Vega.

[Scott Pelley]

I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and in our last minute, actress Sally Field with a childhood lesson

[Anderson Cooper]

about America tonight on 60 Minutes.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

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[Lesley Stahl]

The stock market has been steadily rising for many months now, despite occasional volatility around issues like tariffs and war. This resilience got us thinking about booms, busts and bubbles. So we decided to talk to one of the country's top financial reporters, Andrew Ross Sorkin. As we first reported in October, Sorkin had just written a book called 1929 about the market crash a century ago. We wondered if he ran out of news to cover or was he alerting us that what's happening in the markets right now is a replay of what led to the most devastating financial collapse in our history.

[Bill Whitaker]

Tuesday, October 29, 1929.

[Lesley Stahl]

Imagine the new York Stock Exchange back then, the crush of frightened traders dumping stocks, investors losing their shirts, businesses, their homes sweeping away. The Roaring Twenties walking that same but transformed floor.

[Anderson Cooper]

Today, everything's digital.

[Lesley Stahl]

Well, yeah, okay, Andrew Ross Sorkin says we're in our own roaring 20s, the 2000s, with stocks climbing for months just

[Anderson Cooper]

like then, the crazy Part about this is from 1928 to September of 1929, the stock market was up 90%.

[Lesley Stahl]

When you say the stock market was way up, immediately I think of now. Are you scared?

[Anderson Cooper]

I'm anxious. I'm anxious that we are at prices that may not feel sustainable. And what I don't know is we are either living through some kind of remarkable boom, and part of that's artificial intelligence and technology and all of that, or everything's overpriced, or we're reliving 1929. There was so much anxiety.

[Lesley Stahl]

Sorkin has covered the markets for two decades. He joined the New York Times after college, soon founding the Dealbook newsletter covering finance. He also co hosts Squawkbox on cnbc.

[Scott Pelley]

Good to see you, too.

[Bill Whitaker]

Thanks for having me.

[Lesley Stahl]

Runs the Dealbook Summit, where he interviews the high and mighty. He co created Billions, the TV show. Wrote a bestseller about the 2008 crash, and now a book about 1929. We're always being undone by bubbles. There was the Internet bubble in 2000, housing in 2008. Are we in another bubble, an AI bubble or something like that?

[Anderson Cooper]

I think it's hard to say. We're not in a bubble of some sort.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Of.

[Anderson Cooper]

The question is always, when is the bubble going to pop?

[Lesley Stahl]

One symptom of a bubble is when the market goes up and up, but the underlying economy, the real economy, goes soft. And that appears to be happening right now.

[Anderson Cooper]

I would argue to you that the economy is being propped up almost artificially by the artificial intelligence boom. There are hundreds of billions of dollars that are being invested today in artificial intelligence. This is either a gold rush or a sugar rush. And we probably won't know for a couple of years which one it is.

[Bill Whitaker]

4 million shares a day.

[Lesley Stahl]

1929 was a sugar rush caused by speculation and debt. People who didn't really have much money were lured by Wall street bankers to invest using a newfangled concep take on debt called credit. You only had to put down 10% of the stock price, borrowing the rest from your broker.

[Anderson Cooper]

Prior to 1919, most people did not take on credit or debt at all. It was a sin. It was a moral sin to use credit to buy anything. And it was really General Motors that basically came up with the idea that we're going to lend you money so you can afford to buy our cars.

[Lesley Stahl]

Brilliant.

[Anderson Cooper]

And then the bankers realize what's happening and they realize that they can lend out money so that more folks can buy stocks. It was all sort of wrapped in the flag of Democratizing access. And in good times, when the stock is going up, it's like free money. In bad times, you're on the hook, and you're on the hook in a very bad way.

[Lesley Stahl]

Since then, laws, regulations, and agencies have been put in place to protect investors, especially the less affluent, from being exploited. We put up barriers after 1929.

[Anderson Cooper]

Yes.

[Lesley Stahl]

Protections. Yes. So those are coming down. They're tumbling down. The SEC rules aren't as stringent anymore.

[Anderson Cooper]

Yes. The Consumer Protection Bureau practically doesn't exist anymore.

[Lesley Stahl]

Correct.

[Anderson Cooper]

That's what concerns me. It's not that we're going off a cliff tomorrow. It's that there's speculation in the market today. There's an increasing amount of debt in the market today. And all of that's happening against the backdrop of the guardrails coming off, including

[Lesley Stahl]

guardrails that allow only the wealthy to invest directly in private companies that have fewer regulations, like AI startups, before they go public.

[Anderson Cooper]

So over the last 20 or 30 years, folks who had access to who could invest in private equity and venture capital clearly outperformed folks who didn't.

[Lesley Stahl]

That's how you really made money. But you have to remember that these kind of assets are gambles.

[Anderson Cooper]

Public companies after the SEC was created were required to have all sorts of disclosure rules so that the public could understand what's going on inside them. Private companies don't have that. But historically, the average ordinary American wasn't really allowed to invest in the private companies. But in this flag of democratizing finance, there's a lot of people who want access to that. Isn't this something?

[Lesley Stahl]

This is spectacular. Sorkin took us to the Fifth Avenue mansion of one of the big bankers back then who pushed democratization. If this idea of bringing the regular guy into buying stock, if that was a big problem back in 1929, why are we going there again? Doesn't it defy some kind of logic?

[Anderson Cooper]

There is a view that it's been only the elites that have had access to these investments. Facebook before it ever went public, Uber before it went public. So there is this idea that it's unfair, actually, to the ordinary investor because we haven't allowed them to get access to some of these investment opportunities early. And there is a real push, partially by the Trump administration, partially by the industry itself, which wants to get more money. Get more money in. Yeah, to open up the market to more and more people.

[Lesley Stahl]

So we have these guardrails for a reason. I mean, they're there to protect. And they have protected.

[Anderson Cooper]

They have protected a lot of people. But some people would say they protected people from getting rich.

[Scott Pelley]

Many people don't believe in capitalism anymore, and I think a lot of it is because they were not a part of the growth of the economy.

[Lesley Stahl]

We went to Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world's biggest money manager, handling about $14 trillion in assets like pension funds. His annual letter to investors is a kind of industry roadmap. In 2025, it suggested opening our retirement 401 s, bastions of caution to riskier private investments in the name of, wait for it, democratizing investing.

[Scott Pelley]

As I wrote, there are many great opportunities to be investing in startup companies, to invest in AI or data centers. Right now we are precluded to put those type of assets in many retirement products. And the Trump administration has now said we are going to allow in our 401k products the opportunity to invest in these private markets.

[Lesley Stahl]

But they are risky, aren't they?

[Scott Pelley]

Yes, but everything is risky other than keeping your money in a bank account overnight.

[Lesley Stahl]

But we're talking about 401 s. Yes, investing out of retirement accounts. Yes, you're risking the nest egg or part of the, a little part of the nest egg.

[Scott Pelley]

But what the markets will teach you over the last hundred years, even at the worst moments, if you have the ability to persevere and you have a long term horizon, you're going to do fine. And a diversified portfolio is essential. We're not suggesting, you know, one shoe fits all. We are suggesting the opportunity to have that ability to invest in these private market investments.

[Lesley Stahl]

He also believes we should be investing in, in crypto. It wasn't that long ago that the big bankers Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink were saying that crypto was stupid and a fraud.

[Scott Pelley]

I did say Bitcoin because we were talking about Bitcoin then was the domain of money launderers and thief. But you know, the markets teach you you have to always relook at your assumptions. There is a role for crypto in the same way there's a role for gold. That is, it's an alternative for those looking to diversify. This is not a bad asset, but I don't believe that it should be a large component of your portfolio.

[Lesley Stahl]

But Sorkin says some crypto can be abused in ways similar to 1929. Take meme coins, cryptocurrencies that can be manipulated by speculators who pump them up, then let them crash.

[Anderson Cooper]

There are a number of examples where it felt like there was an inside group of people who were colluding to pump up some of these cryptocurrencies and other things. I'll give you a bizarre story of my own. I was on television with Larry Fink and he makes a joke, I think, about how there should be a Sorkin coin.

[Scott Pelley]

I think the Sorkin coin should.

[Anderson Cooper]

Sorkin coin. Well, two hours later, somebody makes a Sorkin coin and all of a sudden this Sorkin coin is now worth millions of dollars. And I'm watching it.

[Lesley Stahl]

Are you serious?

[Anderson Cooper]

Go up and up and up and up and up.

[Lesley Stahl]

The Sorkin coin peaked at $170 million worth of trading in a day.

[Anderson Cooper]

And I think today it does something like 20 or $21 a day. So I'm thrilled to have Bill Gates with us.

[Lesley Stahl]

Sorkin is trusted by the world's top business leaders who talk to him, often exclusively.

[Bill Whitaker]

I have no problem being hated.

[Lesley Stahl]

By the way, what role do you think these business leaders should be playing now?

[Anderson Cooper]

My own view is that most CEOs in America today are very scared to speak out publicly about anything. They are so worried that they are going to be potentially attacked by the administration or regulated. They're going to have a merger in front of some agency that's not going to be allowed to go through. They are so nervous about criticizing anything that's going on with this administration.

[Lesley Stahl]

There are some economists who suggest that because Mr. Trump ties his success to. To the success of the market, that he's not going to let anything like what happened in 1929 happen and that we should feel secure because of that.

[Anderson Cooper]

I think it's hard to know how things get out of control when confidence disappears. It happens like this.

[Lesley Stahl]

So you spent nearly 10 years on this book. The inevitable question is, do you think that we will have a crash or not?

[Anderson Cooper]

The answer is we will have a crash. I just can't tell you when and I can't tell you how deep, but I can assure you. Unfortunately, I wish I wasn't saying this. We will have a crash.

[Scott Pelley]

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[Lesley Stahl]

now. Dr. John LaPook on assignment for 60 Minutes.

[Scott Pelley]

Biologist Charles Darwin began crafting his theory of evolution on A trip to the Galapagos Islands, where he discovered animals had developed unique traits that varied from island to island. Nearly two centuries later, on a different island, scientists aren't just observing evolution. They now have the technology to shape it. We met a team of modern day Darwins on Nantucket, where as we first told you last fall, they're hoping to use genetic engineering to reduce the transmission of Lyme disease, a tick borne illness found primarily in the Northeast and upper Midwest, but also throughout the United States. The scientists target may surprise you. It's not the deer often associated with the disease, or even the ticks, but wild mice, the main carriers of Lyme. With the rate of emergency room visits for tick bites at a record high in some regions, this could be the summer Americans consider a new strategy to fight disease. Sculpting evolution. Thirty miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts is the island of Nantucket, a 14 mile long, 3 mile wide oasis known for its natural beauty, pristine shorelines and protected landscape. But hidden is a scourge that's afflicted 15% of its residents.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

The natural disaster in our area is not hurricanes or tornadoes or earthquakes. It is Lyme disease. It is the one plague that might be severe enough that communities might want to engineer a wild organism in order to get rid of it, or at least reduce the level of Lyme.

[Scott Pelley]

Deep in the Island's brush in 2024, we found MIT Associate Professor Kevin Esvelt, a pioneer in genetic engineering, waving a white flag in search of ticks.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

So we just grab it.

[Scott Pelley]

These tiny vectors of Lyme disease were not hard to find.

[Bill Whitaker]

We just pop it in.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

These are the big ones because these are largely adults.

[Scott Pelley]

If the adults are this small, imagine the tiny, tiny. What are they called? Nymphs. Nymphs, yeah.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

We often think of poppy seed sized.

[Scott Pelley]

Esvelt's collaborator is Sam Telford, an epidemiologist at Tufts University who's been studying ticks on Nantucket for the last 41 years.

[Bill Whitaker]

There's a 50% chance, maybe more, that this is actually carrying Lyme disease.

[Scott Pelley]

But you're not afraid because it has

[Bill Whitaker]

to be attached for more than 24 hours.

[Scott Pelley]

Right, to infect you.

[Bill Whitaker]

That's correct. These guys will swell up 50 to 100 times that size with blood. You know, that becomes that big.

[Scott Pelley]

And that's how you know when they're engorged, you know that they've been feeding on you.

[Bill Whitaker]

If you see it that big, then you're in trouble.

[Scott Pelley]

The scientists aren't here just to collect ticks. They're interested in this critter. This is a wild mouse.

[Bill Whitaker]

This is a wild white footed mouse.

[Scott Pelley]

And you've tagged it?

[Bill Whitaker]

I've tagged it. So when I come back in April or May of next year, we get an idea of what overwintering success is.

[Scott Pelley]

Telford is tracking the mouse population on Nantucket as part of a novel project. The scientists want to use genetic engineering to interrupt the cycle of infection necessary for Lyme disease to flourish. White footed mice are the main host of Lyme bacteria. When an uninfected ticket bites an infected mouse, the bacteria transfer to the tick. When that infected tick then bites an uninfected mouse, the cycle continues. Deer don't get infected, but they help spread the disease because ticks embed on them to feed, then reproduce with a single female tick laying as many as 2,000 eggs. Here's Esvelt and Telford's big idea. Change the genetic makeup of the mice so they're immune to Lyme. That way the ticks that bite them won't get infected. You don't have to kill the mouse in order to interrupt the cycle.

[Bill Whitaker]

It'd be so much more economical and straightforward to just go out and poison all the mice. Right, get rid of the mice. But then there's a whole food chain that might depend on these mice that would be impacted.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

The dream is that we can use new technologies to ensure that wild creatures can live in peace, playing their normal ecological role, but without causing disease that make people suffer.

[Bill Whitaker]

Come on in, Winnie.

[Scott Pelley]

If Esvelt's dream becomes a reality, 80 year old Dr. Timothy Lepry might finally be able to retire.

[Bill Whitaker]

So how did you get Lyme disease, do you think, Winnie?

[Lesley Stahl]

Was it because of the tape? Right here.

[Scott Pelley]

Over the past 40 years, he's been the island's emergency room head, sole surgeon, even its medical examiner. Today, Dr. Lepry runs the only private practice on Nantucket where he treats dozens of patients with Lyme disease each year. Foam, a finger and yes, that's a giant tick in his waiting room.

[Bill Whitaker]

Being in private practice, it is. While not well paid, you get paid

[Scott Pelley]

in like what, chickens and donuts? We prefer lobsters actually.

[Bill Whitaker]

Lobsters, clams and scallops.

[Scott Pelley]

But you'll take anything, right?

[Bill Whitaker]

I will take anything. Come on down, Shona.

[Scott Pelley]

Lyme disease can be treated with antibiotics, but if left untreated, the infection can spread to the heart, joints and nervous system as it did for 33 year old Shawna Asplant.

[Lesley Stahl]

My body hurts all the time.

[Bill Whitaker]

Okay.

[Lesley Stahl]

I don't know if that's for my Lyme disease or what? My neck is stiff, my ankles are sore, and my hips.

[Scott Pelley]

Asplant was first diagnosed with Lyme when she was 10 years old. A few years later, the left side of her face stopped moving. A residual effect from the disease is still noticeable. Today.

[Bill Whitaker]

I see you smile.

[Lesley Stahl]

It's still a little off.

[Bill Whitaker]

And then if I, yeah, no, raise

[Lesley Stahl]

my eyebrows, it just doesn't move.

[Bill Whitaker]

We see people with facial palsies, we see little kids with swollen knees, we see people with Lyme rashes. So it alters people's behavior and activities.

[Scott Pelley]

The problem on Nantucket can be traced back to 1926, when locals voted to import two female deer to the island to give a lone buck company. As the deer population grew, so did the ticks. On top of that, by the 1950s, half the land on the island was put into conservation. The untamed brush and wild grasslands create an ideal ecosystem for Lyme's host to thrive.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

We have a problem with tick borne disease because we engineered the environment to maximize the number of ticks and to maximize the number of mice that are the best host of Lyme disease. And it came back and bit us, literally.

[Scott Pelley]

A trip at age 11 to the Galapagos Islands sparked Esvelt's lifelong obsession with evolution. In 2013, he was the first to propose that CRISPR, a revolutionary technology that enables scientists to edit DNA, could be used to change a species genetics in perpetuity. Hacking the laws of inheritance.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

I mean, it's not like we won a fitness advantage.

[Scott Pelley]

This idea led to the project they call Mice against Ticks in the sculpting Evolution lab Esvelt runs at MIT. For the last 10 years, he and researcher Joanna Buchthal have been studying whether they could add a gene for an antibody that prevents Lyme infection to a mouse embryo that, as we see here, has progressed into two cells. Is it going to be into one

[Bill Whitaker]

of those cells or both of them?

[Lesley Stahl]

So our technique involves injecting both cells to maximize the likelihood that we get the antibody gene in their DNA.

[Scott Pelley]

Buckthall and embryologist Zach Hill showed us how they genetically engineer lab mice.

[Lesley Stahl]

He's going to actually inject through the plasma membrane and into the nucleus for both of these cells.

[Scott Pelley]

How are you at darts?

[Bill Whitaker]

Not very good, but you're going to hit a lot better at this.

[Scott Pelley]

You're going to hit the center of this. Oh, yeah.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Okay.

[Bill Whitaker]

So I already have an embryo set

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

up on the dish here, so I'm

[Bill Whitaker]

just trying to find the nucleus here.

[Scott Pelley]

It is amazing to See this?

[Lesley Stahl]

So that little burst that you can see in the nucleus is when he's actually injecting the genome engineering tools directly into the nucleus where the DNA is.

[Scott Pelley]

The injection mix contains both the antibody gene and crispr, which acts like molecular scissors. After CRISPR finds and cuts the targeted area of DNA, the cell inserts the gene into the mouse's genetic code. When this mouse is born, it will be immune to Lyme disease and so will its children. If I get a polio vaccine, my kids aren't going to be immune to polio unless they get the vaccine too.

[Lesley Stahl]

That's exactly right. So this is a heritable immunization.

[Scott Pelley]

What do you mean by that?

[Lesley Stahl]

What we're actually doing is we're encoding immunity so that that immunity is passed on generationally and every mouse that gets the antibody gene is actually immune.

[Scott Pelley]

Typical standard evolution happened very slowly, right over thousands, maybe millions of years.

[Bill Whitaker]

Are you speeding up evolution here?

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

We are absolutely speeding up evolution. And that's precisely why we have to be careful, because we are doing things that couldn't happen naturally.

[Scott Pelley]

The plan is to release thousands of engineered mice on Nantucket over time, starting during the winter months when the native mouse population is low. But first, asphalt needs community buy in. He chose Nantucket not only for its high rate of Lyme, but also for its tight knit, well educated community with the tradition of town hall democracy.

[Lesley Stahl]

I am going to call the October 23rd select board meeting to order at

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

5:30 30pm we also need to start small.

[Scott Pelley]

We saw this in action in October 2024 when for the 10th time, the scientists presented their latest findings to locals.

[Lesley Stahl]

So it appears that we have indeed produced the first heritably Lyme immune laboratory mice capable of breaking the disease transmission

[Scott Pelley]

cycle, followed by a public Q and A.

[Bill Whitaker]

We have a huge population of field mice here.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

Shall we expect a larger population?

[Anderson Cooper]

Having had Lyme disease twice, I thought

[Payam Kaskuday]

what a cool idea.

[Anderson Cooper]

But mice are kind of the foundation

[Bill Whitaker]

of the food chain.

[Anderson Cooper]

So tinkering with the food chain makes

[Lesley Stahl]

me a little cautious.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

How long before it's actually going to

[Bill Whitaker]

take effect and keep me from getting Lyme disease?

[Scott Pelley]

When you're in these meetings, what's that been like?

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

Some people are really gung ho about this, some people have deep reservations. But what I found heartening about this, and Nantucket in particular, is that pretty much everyone agrees that this is how we should go about developing these kinds of technologies, that it should not just be scientists in their laboratories get a clever idea and then boom, it's there.

[Scott Pelley]

Dr. Timothy Lepry says he's supportive of the proposal right here, but as an avid falconer, he wants more testing to be done to ensure there won't be unintended consequences to the island's ecosystem. Could a change in the field mouse lead to a change in the hawk?

[Bill Whitaker]

Well, that's the question. I don't think so, but we don't know. But I think that has to be shown.

[Scott Pelley]

Do you worry about fooling around with Mother Nature?

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

Absolutely. But on the other hand, I'm not terribly fond of Mother Nature if she's going to give my kids disease. All of technology is saying to Mother Nature, you're beautiful and we appreciate you very much and we need to conserve you, but we're not always happy with the way things work naturally, and so we're going to change it.

[Scott Pelley]

But in this case, you're changing the environment for everybody.

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

This is, I agree, different because it's hard for individuals to opt out. And I think that means we need to do the science differently because we need to ensure that people have a voice early enough to actually influence the direction that the technology is developed.

[Scott Pelley]

If federal and state regulators agree, the team plans to first release the engineered mice in a small field trial on a private island so they can better understand the ecological impacts before any potential experiments on Nantucket. What is the home run for you?

[Dr. Timothy Lepry]

I think it's a field trial that works. It's something that allows us to dramatically reduce the fraction of ticks that are infected that doesn't have anything obviously go wrong with the ecosystem. And then the community has a good discussion and then they decide and I think there's benefits, as we discussed, even if they say no and then we walk away.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

Everyone knows that unexplainable it factor, that smile that lights up a room, that wow. Well, it doesn't happen by itself. There's chemistry behind the charisma. Colgate Optic White Pro series toothpaste removes 15 years of deep set stains when you brush twice daily for two weeks.

[Lesley Stahl]

How?

[Sharon Alfonsi]

The clinically proven formula is powered by Colgate's hydrogen peroxide complex. It works at the molecular level to gently dissolve stains deep within the enamel where your brush can't reach. It's of proof that daily routine can be remarkable. That's the science of wow. Colgate Optic White, Ryan Reynolds here from

[Payam Kaskuday]

Mint Mobile with a message for everyone.

[Bill Whitaker]

Paying big wireless way too much.

[Lesley Stahl]

Please, for the love of everything good

[Payam Kaskuday]

in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month.

[Bill Whitaker]

Of course, if you enjoy Overpaying.

[Payam Kaskuday]

No judgments.

[Bill Whitaker]

But that's weird.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[Sharon Alfonsi]

of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail].

[Bill Whitaker]

It's a fairly safe bet that most kids taking piano lessons don't like them. That was certainly my experience. I took piano from age 5 to 12 before quitting in frustration. The scales and sheet music and strict teacher just got the best of me. Now along comes a piano teacher named Payam Kaskuday. The 32 year old son of Iranian immigrants says he's come up with a new method of teaching that has students loving their piano lessons. What makes this near Unknown Worth a 60 Minute Story? Well, his students are sweeping national competitions. He's won over a legendary tech innovator and an Oscar winning composer. They'll both tell you why they've joined his musical revolution. But we think you ought to hear from Payam first.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Piano's not supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be strict. It's supposed to be stressful. It's supposed to be like this very intense instrument you're learning. And we're like, why? Like why can't it be fun? Why can't we actually enjoy the songs we're learning? Our students don't just learn piano, they love piano. And that's one of the biggest keys to it. Can you play a little bit from right there? Same spot. Now can you play a little game? Can you show us how you can play without licking? You want to look up? Yeah, let's look up and play.

[Bill Whitaker]

In nearly every room of a converted home in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Washington, Payam and his team of young teachers, all former students of his, are giving piano lessons and having fun.

[Lesley Stahl]

It was really good. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum.

[Bill Whitaker]

Students are charged between 75 and $100 per lesson. Start from here and range from preschool beginners to high school talents. Wow.

[Payam Kaskuday]

High five. Amazing.

[Bill Whitaker]

Wow. How long have you been practicing that?

[Scott Pelley]

I think for 4ish weeks.

[Bill Whitaker]

4 weeks.

[Payam Kaskuday]

In piano we have this thing called the diploma, which is sort of like the black belt of the musical world. Traditionally, about 1 to 2% of students reach diploma level and it takes them about 12 years. In our school, 96% reached it and it takes them about four years.

[Bill Whitaker]

I can hear the traditionalist saying, hold on a minute, it can't be that easy. It can't be that fun. I mean, in order to be a really good pianist, you've got to have discipline, you've got to have hard work, you've got to have rigor. Are they wrong?

[Payam Kaskuday]

I agree and disagree. Of course. Nobody will become phenomenal at anything unless they actually put in the time and energy. But when you actually enjoy what you're doing, you don't realize that you're putting in the time for that.

[Bill Whitaker]

So they love it first.

[Payam Kaskuday]

They love it first. If you learn 1, 3, 5. And if you learn, that's just this.

[Bill Whitaker]

The PAYAM method begins not with sheet music, but with ABCs and one, two, threes and with actually writing numbers on piano keys.

[Payam Kaskuday]

This is a song I would teach my 3 year old student that would come into class one day and we understand this is one, this is five. They're not reading notes. They're not even sometimes looking at sheet music. We're playing a game. And it's fun for them because they'll go, 1, 2, 3. And then I'll say, good job, let's go 1, 1, 2, 5. And then they'll think and they'll go. And what they're doing is building this

[Bill Whitaker]

coordination and using tools they already know, numbers and letters to learn a new language, the language of music, for example.

[Payam Kaskuday]

I really want to learn Chinese. If somebody put a book in front of me that was in Chinese, my brain would just lock up. Exactly. And I have no idea what I'm doing. But if they taught me using a language I know, which is ABCs and 123s, it would make sense. I'd be like, oh, I learned it and then I'm just mapping it up.

[Bill Whitaker]

And just as students of Chinese eventually learn Chinese characters, Payim's students do shift to sheet music as they move through the 18 levels of his curriculum. How long does it take to go from this to this?

[Payam Kaskuday]

This is our level two. This is our level 13. This would take about a year and a half to two years for students. And during all that time, you're learning songs that you actually enjoy.

[Bill Whitaker]

The operative word in music is, after all, play. So be playful. Hans Zimmer has written the musical scores for more than 150 films. He's been nominated for 12 Oscars and won two, including for his score for the Lion King. But before he was a renowned composer and performer, he was a frustrated music student. You had an unconventional music education. I had an unconventional education, to say the least. Eight schools asked me to leave. I left with pleasure. Is that the playfulness the unconventionality of the education. Is that what drew you to Payam and his method? Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's exactly what I wish I could have had. Most of Pyim's students don't aspire to be concert pianists, and his playful approach seems to have them loving their lessons. But what really sets him apart is that he's also teaching them to compose their own original songs at very young ages. Dallara is just 12.

[Payam Kaskuday]

This is your third composition you've written?

[Scott Pelley]

Yeah.

[Bill Whitaker]

This is your composition?

[Lesley Stahl]

Yeah.

[Bill Whitaker]

Oh, that's excellent. Payam wrote this, his first original song, when he was nine years old as a gift for his newborn sister. At age 11, he entered a different original composition into an arts competition sponsored by the national pta.

[Payam Kaskuday]

The first composition competition I ever entered was the PTA Reflections program and I won.

[Bill Whitaker]

So you have students now? Yes, many who perform and write for this very same competition.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Exactly.

[Bill Whitaker]

How have they done?

[Payam Kaskuday]

Phenomenal. The best I ever did in the competition was win second place at state and I thought that was the biggest achievement in the world. In 2024, we submitted 41 of our students to compete in the Reflections competition. There was 300,000 nationwide, so we made up a very, very small portion of them. But we won 13 out of 15 district winners. We won five out of five Washington state first place winners. And then those five students went on to compete nationally and four of them won four of the 14 national medals that were awarded.

[Bill Whitaker]

Wow.

[Lesley Stahl]

Play from the pick up note bomb.

[Bill Whitaker]

Even when they're learning other people's compositions, Pyim students are encouraged to play around with tempo and style and mood. That is not how I learned piano at all.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Not how I learned it either.

[Bill Whitaker]

There's a certain way to do it and you better do it that way.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Exactly.

[Bill Whitaker]

Yeah.

[Payam Kaskuday]

That's what we're trying to change about the musical world.

[Bill Whitaker]

On day one, I said, I want to help scale this thing. Hadi Partovi met Payam when his then 12 year old son Darius enrolled in piano lessons. So how have you seen. Hartovi is the co founder and CEO of Code.org, a non profit that has a free online platform that millions of teachers have used to teach the basics of computer coding to hundreds of millions of kids. There's a lot of parallels between pyammusic and code.org? one is, we don't teach coding with ones and zeros or, you know, angle brackets and semicolons. We teach it with blocks and dragging and dropping to make it easier. Similarly, Payam Music teaches music starting with ABCs and 1,2,3s before you learn the code of how music is written. So Hadi Partovi is now CEO of PAYAM Music with the goal of taking this tiny school, now with just a few hundred students, national. So the plan is to open payim schools all across the country? That's correct. Partovi has raised money to fund the expansion from an impressive list of investors, including film composer Hans Zimmer. What made you decide to not just recognize payim's method and what he's doing, but to actually invest in it? To this day, I just remember these piano lessons as being horrible. And here's a man who figured out a way of giving children this opportunity to have absolute happiness. You know, love music and love themselves. Zimmer visited payam's first new location in Santa Monica, California, and listened to star pupils play their compositions, including Hadi Partovi's son Darius, now 19. I'd love to hear the piece slightly slower, just breathe with it, more. With my son, I didn't even realize that he was writing music until one day I was like, oh, whose piece are you playing? And he was like, I'm just making it up as I go. And I was like, what do you have to. Or how do you convince the music establishment, music school instructors that what you've got here is something special? Over time, we'll be able to convince the music establishment that this new way of teaching is better. But right now, we just need to convince parents. And the easiest way to convince parents is when they watch their son or daughter fall in love with music.

[Lesley Stahl]

Best decision I made the best decision. You made the best decision I made. Yes, definitely.

[Bill Whitaker]

Sharzad Salastani's daughter Aili is 9. Sashwathi Sanyol's daughter Anya is 15. And Julia Ying's son Jonathan is away at college after years of lessons at PAYAM Music.

[Scott Pelley]

It is life changing.

[Bill Whitaker]

Life changing for Jonathan. In what way?

[Lesley Stahl]

In the way that learning could be fun. So I see my daughter Anya to be more confident and you feel good about yourself. So that is really different about this school.

[Bill Whitaker]

So they're all having fun, but they're learning.

[Lesley Stahl]

But they're learning.

[Bill Whitaker]

They want to work hard at the piano.

[Lesley Stahl]

It's contagious.

[Bill Whitaker]

Give me a high five, dude. Amazing. That was fantastic. So to the skeptics you say, try

[Payam Kaskuday]

it once and you'll understand.

[Bill Whitaker]

I'm doing great. We couldn't resist a piano lesson 50 years after my last one. Back up here.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Exactly. Perfect. And then last one.

[Bill Whitaker]

You did it.

[Payam Kaskuday]

That was it. Finished. Level two. Amazing.

[Bill Whitaker]

How about that?

[Payam Kaskuday]

Yeah.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

Improvising the classics.

[Payam Kaskuday]

Same song, but you have a different feeling.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

Go to 60minutesovertime.com. The last minute of 60 Minutes.

[Scott Pelley]

As the nation celebrates 250 years of independence. Oscar winner Sally Field wanted to share something she learned as a child in Van Nuys, California.

[Lesley Stahl]

When I was in the seventh grade, I was asked to memorize something that I never forgot. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peacefully to assemble. It's the First Amendment to the US Constitution. I barely knew what it meant at the time. I certainly didn't know the importance of it. And now, almost 67 years later, I understand it like never before. I have the right to speak out, make a sign, and peacefully join a protest without fear of punishment or retribution or worse. I have learned that this fragile thing called democracy needs to be protected, that the brilliance of our Constitution begins with the words we the people. I believe in the resilience of our Constitution and I believe in the goodness and strength of the people.

[Scott Pelley]

I'm Scott Pelley.

[Anderson Cooper]

We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change. Today, we have more incentives for market solutions that than ever. And emissions are rising. On this season of drilled carbon cowboys, the story of three market solutions colliding in one multinational boondoggle.

[Scott Pelley]

Got to give Bruce and the guys credit.

[Bill Whitaker]

They're Republicans.

[Anderson Cooper]

They don't give a about any of this stuff.

[Sharon Alfonsi]

Listen anywhere you get podcasts.