60 Minutes - 03/22/2026: Elemental Crisis, Turning the Ship Around, The Dog Aging Project

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

In what might be the ultimate front of the U.S. trade war with China, correspondent Jon Wertheim reports from the only active rare earth mine in the U.S., deep in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada border.  Shipbuilding in the United States has been decimated over the decades by shortsighted policies and neglect. Today, the U.S. builds about three large cargo ships a year while China rolls out around 1,000. The Trump administration has called this a national security crisis and is making it a priority to revive the American shipbuilding industry. One solution comes from our ally South Korea. Hanwha, the Korean ship-making giant, is hoping to help resurrect the industry in the U.S. by buying and reviving the Philadelphia shipyard. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports from Hanwha’s shipyards in Korea and Philadelphia. Progress in treating diseases of aging like Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia has been difficult, and a new research initiative finds dogs could help change that. Scientists are discovering the biology of aging in our canine companions has striking parallels to human aging. Our dogs develop many of the same diseases we do and have remarkably similar brain structures. Correspondent Anderson Cooper reports on the Dog Aging Project that is collecting data on more than 50,000 dogs across the country in hopes of providing insight into both canine and human disease and revealing pathways to help humans and our four-legged friends live longer, healthier lives. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. In our southwest of Las Vegas, in the guts of the Mojave, sits the only active rare earth mine in the U.S., an unlikely battlefield in our trade war with China, which has a near monopoly over these strategic metals. When Beijing choked off supplies last year, James Latinsky and his company got the call. 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. American shipbuilding is in shambles, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals. China makes roughly 1,000 cargo ships a year. The U.S., maybe three. At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity.

The U.S. needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy. We are in a shipbuilding crisis in the United States, and every American should be aware of that. Dogs live alongside us and are exposed to the same environments. They exercise with us, eat our food, drink the same water. That's why researchers believe dogs may be one of man's best hopes to treat age-related illnesses. Cancer, dementia, all these diseases that we see as humans age occur in dogs.

And you believe looking at dogs can help us not only help dogs, but humans as well? Yes, of course. Absolutely. Scott Pelly. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Al Thansy. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. 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. When Westcham first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you

get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We are here to support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first acquisition. Whether it's improving cash flow or exploring investment banking solutions. With Desjardin business, it's all under one roof. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk. Business. 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 prominently,

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 super-powered magazines. And it's part owned by us, American taxpayers, in an unusual deal crafted by the federal government.

In our southwest of Las Vegas, in the guts of the Mojave, mountain past 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 U.S. This is an unlikely battleground. Are we stepping on rare earths as we speak? Yes, everywhere you look is rare earths. And Michael Rosenthal and James Latinsky are the unlikely men in charge.

Two Floridians in the snow. Two finance types suddenly trafficking and mining in metallurgy. You have no background in geology, and now you're running the biggest rare earth mine in the U.S. This is just 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. The Trump administration is keenly aware of the problem of China's rare earth dominance. Doug Bergum is Secretary of the Interior.

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. Yes, defense systems. According to the military, one F-35 fighter jet contains about 100 pounds of rare earths incorporated into its various parts. Just to be clear, the U.S. defense industry is subject to the whims of China and Xi Jinping for military technology? 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. Right now, we don't have secure.

supply chains of rare earths because China has cornered the market. 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 refining, then they would target that particular mineral, dump a quantity onto the market, drive the price down in companies, including U.S. companies that were profitable, suddenly became unprofitable. Before we proceed, let's dispense with a 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, and two others for those scoring at home.

Lathenum, serium, prasiodymium, neodymium, samarium. Julie Klinger is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. and a rare earth's who's visited mines worldwide and written extensively on the subject. What are their qualities? 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 and 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. 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. 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. 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 U.S. disinvested in rare earths. Absolutely. Why? It's a dirty business. It's a risky business. It's a difficult business to really break even.

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, Mollicor, tried unsuccessfully to compete with China and revive the business. James Littinsky was running a Chicago hedge fund looking for value in distressed companies. When MolliCorpsed for bankruptcy in 2015, Littinsky glimpsed opportunity. 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 and seeing the assets. Actually seeing what your investment looked like. Yes. And I was just blown away by the scale of the assets. The assets? This massive open pit, these concentric circles, a mine 3,000 feet across 600 feet deep, with one of the world's richest deposits. Lettinsky 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. Two hedge fund guys buy a mine. What could go wrong? 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. Littinsky 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? I get dirty, and Jim explains what we're doing. Today, Mountain Pass employs more than 700. Rosenthal manages. is the operation. I cannot get over how extensive and intensive all of this process is once you're done with the actual mining. Yeah.

The mining is really the easiest 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 praesiodimium to 99.9% purity. This is the refined product. This is the money room.

This is it. This is it. 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, could end up in your pocket. Could 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 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. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base. Last April, President Trump unveiled his global tariffs plan, so-called Liberation Day.

China retaliated to devastating effect, choking off rare earths to the U.S. Ford Motors, for one, suddenly without magnets, had to temporarily stop making explorer SUVs. After a series of trade truces between the U.S. and China, the rare earth spigot came back on. Latinsky says few realized how close we were to economic catastrophe. 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. With markets reeling, senior Trump administration officials summoned Latinsky and Rosenthal to Washington. 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.

What did the government want from you? The Pentagon wanted a Manhattan-style project to accelerate the entire supply chain of rare earth magnetics in the country. That's the analogy. 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. 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?

Well, exactly like this, maybe not. But if you look back, whether it was the railroads or aluminum for aviation prior to World 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. And the government had one more stipulation for MP, 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 2008. Still... As we see here today, what percentage of the world's rare earth magnets are made in China? Well north of 90%. So China, in effect, can still hold the world hostage here. They currently do.

Back in Washington, Secretary Bergam 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, 10fold? Wait a second. That is a whiff of socialism. 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. You're talking China. 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 kickstart the private capital. This kind of industrial policy you're talking about, does this happen but for China's retaliation to last April? 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. 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 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. 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. At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you're a building contractor, your company's foundation needs to be strong.

That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Dejardin.com slash business coverage. I'm not an astronaut. I don't need an astronaut.

Project Hail Mary is the cinematic experience of a generation. So, I met an alien. It's exhilarating and awe-inspiring. The Perfect Film. Ryan Gosson gives a performance that goes down in history. Davis! This is one for the ages. Project Hail Mary.

Now playing only Peters. 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 short-sighted policies and neglect. Our submarine building program is sluggish, and our commercial ship building 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 U.S. building large commercial cargo ships. Once a symbol of American might and innovation, ships built here helped win our independent. to win our independence in the 18th century, and World War II in the 20th.

80 million dollars worth of floating defense. This shipyard has become a symbol of American industrial decline, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals. And it still uses a crane from 1942. Now talk about a metaphor of how far behind we are. A lot of times people call it a dinosaur. What else is a dinosaur?

Almost everything that you've seen out there. David Kim, the new head of the Philly Shipyard, showed us around. He works for Hanwa, a giant shipmaker from South Korea, the country making most ships after China. Hanwa bought the yard in 2024 for $100 million, then poured in another $100 million, and tasked Kim, a Korean-American, born and breached Kim, a Korean-American, born and bred in Texas, to bring it into the 21st century.

How many ships do you actually make here? Here at the Hanwap-Filly shipyard, we deliver one-to-one-and-half ships a year, versus our yard in Korea where they deliver basically one a week. What? One a year for delivery versus one a week? That's correct. Not building ships in the U.S. 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. Hanwa plans to spend $5 billion in Philly and has already sent 50 trainers from Korea to teach American workers. Our aspiration is to get to up to 20 ships a year here at the shipyard. So we come back in two years. How different will it look?

you'll see robots, you will see automation equipment. And we're looking to grow the workforce by, call it, 7 to 10,000 to people. Sounds great. Only there's a huge shortage in the U.S. of skilled labor in shipbuilding, including welders and pipe fitters. 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. I worked at Amazon as a grocery picker. Before this job, I was a cake decorator at a bakery. And a nanny. And a nanny as well. Yes, I worked many jobs.

If you were to pitch this job and this place to a friend, what would you say? I would tell my friend that instead of paying out of pocket to go to a trade school, you're getting paid while you learn here the entire time. They pay you? Yes, and healthcare. And health care, which is amazing. But aren't the conditions really harsh?

Not the easiest work. Like, I go home. Granted, I'm more tired, but it's more fulfilling to me. It makes you feel like you're part of something bigger. But not only a worker scarce and the yard outdated, the Philly Shipyard has to bring key components to the U.S., 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? There's no doubt we have challenges and headwinds, but I also think we have a unique moment in the way. we have a unique moment in time. Michael Coulter, who's Hanwa's top executive in charge of U.S. 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 busy here. It is busy. He took us to Hanwa's 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-sense.

sight, 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 U.S. desperately needs, since our fleet is aging and we can barely make new ones. From a Hanwa perspective, we build great submarines.

Here in Korea. Here in Korea, yes. We have told the U.S. 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. Is the ultimate goal for your company to build nuclear submarines for the U.S. Navy? Submarine program in the United States is heading in the wrong direction, and we think we can help. Another way, Hanwa says it wants to help the U.S. 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? That's correct. Not a single one. This leads to an absurd situation. While we export LNG on foreign carriers to over 30 countries. One country we don't send it to is other parts of the United States. Colin Graybow, a trade expert at the Libertarian Cato Institute,

explains that a centri-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. That's right. There aren't any.

And you might think, well, it 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 dollars. Well, wait, are there parts of this country that cannot get natural gas because of this law? That's right. New England.

In winters, New England has to import pricier natural gas from abroad, even though it's extracted only a few states away. In fact, Puerto Rico imported Russian natural gas the same month as Russia invaded Ukraine. No. We take a stance against Russia, and the other hand, we're importing their energy, something that we have in abundance. You can't make this stuff up. 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. We used to build a ship a day, and now we don't do a ship a year practically. But the White House has conflicting priorities. So here's the administration, it wants to build ships, and they're putting huge tariffs, 50 percent, on steel, which is the main component in a ship. What's wrong with that picture? Yes, this is one of the paradoxes of the Trump administration.

We're artificially increasing the cost of building ships in this country. So why can't shipbuilders just use American-made steel? There's no tariffs on those. That's true, but when we put heavy tariffs on imported steel, we drive the those costs up, that's a great opportunity for Americans to raise their own price. What we know is today, American steel is roughly twice as expensive as steel in, say, China. 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?

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

they're coming here to train American workers. Hanwa's Michael Coulter says this caused a backlash in Korea. Have you been assured that what happened in Georgia will not happen in Philadelphia? We've been assured that our visas are the right visas, and our team is not going to be impacted. 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 U.S. shipbuilding industry, promising Philly is just the start.

There's a recognition that the United States has a problem that Korea may be uniquely positioned to help. 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? That doesn't solve the problem. At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity. The U.S. needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy. 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?

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. 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 U.S. Everyone knows the old adage about dogs being mansions. best friend, but you may not know that dogs might also be when a man's best hopes to treat age-related illnesses. That's because our canines develop many of the same diseases we do, including dementia. Dog's 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. What do you think? Are you ready to do your test?

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. Does you ever seem more irritable? Yes. The dog aging project is a collaboration of dog owners, scientists, and veterinarian studying dogs. More than 50,000 of them so far by collecting data on their diets and exercise, analyzing blood samples, and doing MRIs of dogs' brains.

Matt Caberline, 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? 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. You think that's possible? 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 in dogs. Much of it works the same way in people. You're okay. To help study how the brain ages, Caberline recruited Stephanie McGrath, a veterinary neurologist from Colorado State University. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that there are a neurologist for animals. Yes, a lot of people are surprised.

And you believe, looking at... at dogs and looking at dogs' brains can help us not only help dogs, but humans as well. Yes, of course. Absolutely. There's no doubt. Why? Because right now, we are using mice and we are putting them through treatment trials and then we go directly to human trials. I've read that as many as 90% of the things that work in mice do not end up working in humans. Right. So to have something in between would be hugely beneficial. Right. And not just in other 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.

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. We can get a ton of information that would take decades to do in humans. In a human being, if you wanted to do a lifelong study, obviously you would have to do it from the age of one to 60, 70, 80. Exactly. So many decades versus 5, 10 years. So we just checked to make sure his sensory is good. 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. He gets his puppy zoomies about once a week now versus once a day. Okay, all right. They're still in there, though. They're still there. 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 are you doing a situation like that? Just go along with it. He asked me out on a date. Really? Yeah. Can we go on a date? Sure.

Let's go have dinner. You know? Throughout his decline, Murphy was Bill's constant companion. Murphy was a caregiver in some ways. Murphy was 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.

So while Bill is dealing with Alzheimer's, you hear about the dog aging project. I think I was looking at clinical studies, and I found something about dog studies. I thought, oh, dog studies. I hadn't ever heard those. Murphy was getting older and knowing that he's a big dog. They don't have as long a lifespan usually. 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. Okay. 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. Puppy look.

Okay. On the second try, he got a little turned around, but eventually found the tree. There you go. Ady boy. Good job. The anxiety that Murphy showed, is that a potential sign of dementia?

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. Another dog, Ralph, was also tested. At 14, he's already shown signs of advanced dementia. Puppy look. 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 were found to have a six-time greater chance of developing dementia. When some of the dogs in the aging project die, their brains are donated and examined.

Dr. Dirk Keene is a neuropathologist from the University of Washington for the past 20 years. 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's spring decline from what looked like to him the same disease, what some call doggy dementia. So that's spring when she was a healthy, happy dog. Tongue out, tail wagging. She was a happy dog, yeah.

And this is spring near the end of her. 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. It happens in people. This is half of a human brain. This is half a human brain. That's a dog brain. That's the dog brain. Half a brain. Wow. Dr. Keen showed us how similar dogs' brains are to humans.

You can see the dog brain has the same frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe. It's the same basic shape as the human brain. It's very, very similar. And it turns out, dementia changes brain size and structure in very similar ways in both species. 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 going to let you hold this if that's okay. So just grab on there. Yep. You can sort of feel how much different. 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.

Yeah, it's remarkable. It's so depressing. Dementia in dogs also results in enlarged spaces and brain shrinkage. This is Spring's brain? Under 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. And this is a human brain. And 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 percent 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 increased life. expectancy by 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. Ten-year-old Cubert was among those given a placebo. Thirteen-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. So if you just kind of focus in on this side, you see quite a bit of those teal-colored microgleal cells. And then if you look over here, you just see less, right? Like there's just less number of them. 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. Yeah. Would you think when you first saw this? I was super excited. You were? What's your hope in doing this study? If it works in a dog and it's safe and it's helping their cognition, then maybe it would help humans. 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.

or rapamycin to see if the drug can extend life. The first ever longevity drug on the market. There are three other drugs being developed by the for-profit company Loyal, a biotech startup founded in 2019 by 31-year-old Celine Halliwaw. 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.

And you think you will actually help extend a dog's life? Yeah. How long? Approximately one healthier year of life. Maybe it'll be more, maybe it'll be less. 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 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. An aging drug is about delaying and slowing the risk. rate of decline that a dog or a human has over time to give them more healthier years. It's not something that you'd give to a dog or a human on their deathbed to give them another year. It doesn't work like that. Silicon Valley is betting big on longevity. Haliwa's company has raised more than $250 million to bring its drugs to market.

If we can achieve this, this is a massive multibillion-dollar company. If we only do that, we're all happy. But oh, by the way, this also unlocks the possibility of us working human longevity one day. I think going dogs first is the fastest way to work on and understand the biology of human aging. 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 year. You've cared for human with Alzheimer's, you're caring for a dog in this study who is aging.

What have you noticed in terms of similarities? 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 just to decrease that anxiety, decrease that fear that you know was there. And that works with Murphy too. And that works with Murphy too. Yep. Good boy, Ralph.

What Ralph's life meant for science and his science. family. I mean, your pets are family too, right? At 60 Minutes Overtime.com. The last minute of 60 minutes. No American woman has won more Olympic medals than swimmer Katie Ladecki, 14 total, including nine gold. Now she's training for the 28 summer games in Los Angeles. We asked Ladeke, as an Olympian, what has she learned about America? What I've 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. I'm Leslie Stahl. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes. I want to know what's going on in the world. I'm Tony. You can't do that if you're just sitting in a chair reading about what other people have found.

What do you think of that? Why? There are big questions that all of us are asking. I want to get you the answers. How are you? I'm Tony DeCopold. Join me on the CBS Evening News.