¶ Intro / Opening
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When Judge John Kunauer blocked President Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, he wasn't prepared for what happened next.
Desperate.
Oh yes, oh yes, dozens of them. Dozens, if not hundreds.
He's one of 400 federal judges who were targets of serious threats last year, a 78% jump since 2021.
If we're not careful.
American shipbuilding is in shambles, a money loser falling decades behind our global rivals. China makes roughly a thousand cargo ships a year. The US? Maybe three.
At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity. The US needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy. 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 environment. 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 but humans as well.
Yes, of course. Absolutely.
I'm Leslie Staw.
I'm Bill Whitaker.
I'm Anderson Cooper.
I'm Sharon Alphonse.
I'm John Werthon.
I'm Cecilia Vega.
I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight.
On sixty minutes.
There's never been a better time to get outside and experience the benefits of nature. Discover nearby trails and explore the outdoors with all trails. Download the free app today and find your
Side.
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🔇 Silence
¶ Judicial Threats And Presidential Attacks
When the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's tariffs last February, the president lashed out against two Supreme Court justices he nominated, calling them fools and lapdogs. The president has often railed against judges when they rule against him. What often happens next is a barrage of violent threats from his followers against those judges. As we first reported in March, we spoke with 26 federal judges, nine Democratic appointees, 17 Republican, both sitting and retired.
The sitting judges told us they feel under siege. Most would not appear on camera, fearful for their safety. Judge John Koonauer, appointed by Ronald Reagan, is one of the few who would. He blocked President Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship. He wasn't prepared for what happened next.
My wife and I are at home and uh the doorbell rings and I go to the door and there's I think five uh sheriff's deputies there with long rifles.
And they show up with guns drawn.
Oh yeah. Yes, yes. Long guns. Very intimidating guns. And they said to me, Sir, could we see your wife? And I said, whatever for? And they said, well sir, we've had a report that you've murdered your wife.
It was a cruel hoax. The next day, a bomb threat. For John Koonauer, a Federal District Court judge in Washington State, it didn't end there.
Th there was a congressman that had a wanted poster. She said wanted in big letters at the top and then a picture of several of us. It said everything except dead or alive.
His trouble started when President Trump signed an executive order to end the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship for infants born on U.S. soil to non-citizens. Judge Koonauer ruled it, quote, blatantly unconstitutional. The threats poured in.
Some of it was very, very ugly. Yeah. and very threatening.
Death Right.
Oh yes. Oh yes. Dozens of them. Dozens, if not hundreds.
Judge Kunauer told us threats come with the turf. He has sentenced an al-Qaeda bomber and Montana militia members and needed round-the-clock protection. but he said he'd never had as many death threats as with the birthright citizenship case.
I've been at this for forty four years. I have never encountered the hostility toward the judiciary that has existed in this country in the the last year. Uh and I don't think it's because we're uh making bad decisions. Uh I think it's because uh there are people who think that they can make a lot of political hay out of criticizing the federal judiciary.
And also we cannot allow a handful of communist radical left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the President of the United States.
¶ Erosion Of Judicial Independence
When President Trump lost a battle in court to deport migrants, he called the judge a lunatic. When immigration crackdowns were ruled illegal, he called the judges monsters. It's incendiary comments like that that have provoked a torrent of death threats. Our reporting found hundreds of threats were left on judges' voicemails. This one, after a judge ruled the president had violated the First Amendment.
Yeah.
I hope your whole family and everybody you love is raped in front of you and has their heads cut off.
And this one, after a judge ruled the president couldn't cut certain government benefits.
And I wish somebody will fing assassinate your ass.
It's a volcano of vitriol.
I double dare you to try to put charges on Donald J. Trump, you son of a bitch.
It falls to the U.S. Marshals to pinpoint the verbal threats that might lead to physical violence. Judges told us the Marshals are overwhelmed. Last year, 400 federal judges were targets of serious threats, a 78% jump in four years.
Yeah.
In very plain English, if we're not careful, we're gonna get a judge killed. It's just that stark.
It's that serious.
It's that serious.
Judge John Jones is a retired federal judge from Pennsylvania, a George W. Bush appointee. He and fifty-five other retired judges were so concerned they formed a bipartisan group to lobby the White House to stop demonizing judges.
This is such a toxic environment where people are taking arms and can identify where a judge lives, uh, can strike out against that judge or the judge's family members.
So when President Trump attacks judges as rogue. deranged, corrupt. What do you think he's doing and and why?
I think that he's attempting to to delegitimize uh the the federal courts.
Why would he do that? What's the benefit to him?
It's a presidency sort of on steroids. And you have a very dormant, I think, United States Congress and a president who means to really say what the law is. Well, you know, z civics taught me that Congress makes the law and the president uh faithfully executes the laws of the country. We've turned that on its head right now.
Okay, we'll sign right here, right?
Джуд Жонс твол усіхаус і тест не бомзів президента по. Today, the Trump administration is facing nearly 800 lawsuits contesting its agenda, from immigration to job cuts. Judges are caught squarely in the crossfire.
¶ Personal Cost And Public Indifference
Has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend the rule of law. I have a duty to call this out. That's why I'm talking to you.
Judge Esther Sallas is a federal district court judge in New Jersey. A Barack Obama appointee, she has become a leading voice against the personal attacks on judges, which has made her the target of death threats. She knows the stakes. In 2020, a failed litigant came to her front door, shot her son Daniel dead, and wounded her husband Mark. It was not driven by politics, but she fears today's inflammatory rhetoric makes such horrors more likely.
I'm more concerned right now than I was after my only child was murdered.
Why?
Because I think that the attacks against the judiciary are only um getting worse. What I'm seeing now is far different than what I've seen in the past. This is coming from our national leader on down.
Judge Sallas told us vilifying judges is eroding trust in the courts.
If you disagree with a ruling that uh we make appeal us. If you disagree with a sentence we render, appeal us. The answer is not to dehumanize us, and that has been, I think, the active agenda as of late. I feel like sometimes our political leaders are playing Russian roulette with our lives.
Do you think the rhetoric emboldens people.
I do. I think it's dangerous.
In a statement, the White House said As a survivor of two assassination attempts, no one understands the dangers of political violence more than President Trump. It went on to accuse the judiciary of brazen defiance with its unlawful ruling.
These activist judges
Then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called it a war.
We we are routinely getting stays and getting reversals because of of local judges um just not following the law full stop. And and it's the same judges or not the same judges, but it's there's a group of judges that are repeat players, and that's obviously not by happenstance. That's intentional. And it's a it's a war, man.
Todd Blanch declined our request for an interview. In a statement to us, he said some judges continue to issue overbroad and even unreasoned injunctions. But adding threats and intimidation of federal officials is unlawful. Judge John Kuhnauer told us the constitution is a judge's north star. So to someone who says that you are a political agent in trying to thwart. the goals of the president, you would say
I would say y you don't understand what we do. We apply the Constitution for the last two hundred and fifty years in this country. It's been the judges that that say this is either constitutional or it isn't. If if nobody's gonna make that decision, nobody's gonna enforce the constitution, it becomes like the Constitution of Russia.
The threats aren't just coming from the right. In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned that Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would, quote, pay the price for restricting abortion. He later apologized. In 2022, a would-be assassin was arrested for trying to kill Justice Kavanaugh at his home. But Judge Jones, a Republican appointee, told us the violent language of the right has no math.
from both sides has probably gotten worse over time. However And I would not concede that the Democratic Party or or that Democratic office holders have conducted themselves in any way that's similar to what this administration is doing with respect to the Federal Judiciary. There's simply no evidence of that.
¶ New Tactics Of Intimidation
And when you look at the database, it's names and addresses of hundreds of elected officials and judges.
Ron Zayas is the CEO of Ironwall, a company that scrubs judges personal data from the web.
So here's another threat that we have toward a job.
Zias told us in fourteen years he has never seen as many violent threats as today.
You know, if you broadcast that message to a million people, you just need one to act on. And that's the terrifying part the judges are having to deal with too.
Xius also combs through the dark web. Look at the gallows, my god. A criminal haven on the internet where anonymous threat actors try to cause real world harm. These days Zias is worried about a new type of threat.
The threats used to be, you ruled against me and I want to kill you. Now the kind of threats we're seeing, there's a whole other sphere of saying, I want to influence what you do. It's mob mentality. They want to threaten you so that you make the right decision.
The Marshals are also investigating a striking new form of intimidation. Hundreds of unsolicited pizzas sent to judges and their children across the country. an innocuous delivery with an ominous message.
We know where you live, we know where your children live, and do you want to end up like Judge Sallas's son?
at least twenty were sent to homes in the name of Judge Sallas's late son.
The order form had my murdered son's name on it. They're weaponizing my baby boy. They're weaponizing Daniel's name to inflict fear on judges.
I know that's shocking, but it must be so so painful.
You know, that one took me. And you add to that for flavor. That I have yet to see the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General stand at a podium and denounce. these forms of intimidation.
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi also declined our request for an interview. Judge Sallas, among many others, told us the rule of law is at stake.
I sit here as Daniel's mom. I sit here as a woman who lost her only child. Mark and I have been to hell and back. And when I see that kind of irresponsible behavior. coming from our political leaders and people in power, it makes me sad. And it makes me very worried. Because I worry for our democracy. I really do.
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🔇 Silence
¶ America's Shipbuilding Crisis
The war in the Gulf and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has highlighted the importance of ships, not just warships, but cargo vessels like those carrying oil or gas. But as we first reported in March, American shipbuilding is in shambles due to decades of short-sighted policies and neglect. Our submarine building program is sluggish, and our commercial shipbuilding is nearly extinct. China makes roughly a thousand cargo ships a year. The US? 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 independence in the eighteenth century and World War II in the twentieth.
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.
¶ Hanwha's Bid To Revive Industry
David Kim, the new head of the Philly shipyard, showed us around. He works for Hanhua, 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 hundred million and tasked Kim, a Korean American born and bred in Texas, to bring it into the 21st century. How many ships do you actually make here?
Here at the Hanwhap Philly Shipyard, we deliver one to one and a half ships a year. versus our yard in Korea where they deliver basically one a week.
What? One a year for delivery versus one a week?
That's correct.
Not building ships in the US is considered a national security threat. Because if there's a conflict with China, for instance, Beijing could weaponize its substantial merchant fleet and cut us off from global goods. 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 will see robots, you will see automation equipment, and we're looking to grow the workforce by call it seven to ten thousand people.
¶ Overcoming Shipbuilding Challenges
Sounds great. Only there's a huge shortage in the US 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. Anna takes three years. Still, apprentices Justin, Jeff, and Meg told us this beats their old jobs.
When I worked at Amazon as a um grocery picker.
Before this job I was a cake decorator at a bakery. And a nanny as well. Yes, I work 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 something part of something bigger.
But not only are workers scarce and the yard outdated, the Philly shipyard has to bring key components to the US, such as propellers and even the engine. So ships that take six months to build in Korea or China can take twice as long here and cost five times as much. And who will buy them?
There's no doubt that we have uh challenges and headwinds, but I also think we have a unique moment in time.
Michael Coulter, who's Hanwa's top executive in charge of US operations, So you're saying if we build the product, you're not going to More ships then the cost per ship will come down.
Significantly.
It's so busy. He took us to Hanwar Shipyard in Korea, where nine ships are being built at once, four in a row, like Lego sets the size of football fields. Steel chunks bigger than buildings hover over the ground. They're lifted above the water, or they just glide by. He showed us how far ahead they are technologically. Rows and rows of robots. But even with all the automation, the human workforce keeps growing.
There are over 26,000 workers on site, many getting around on low-tech, because this place is so vast. And the Yard keeps hiring, training 400 workers at once, way more than the 20 in Philly. And they're taught using cutting-edge virtual reality. He's learning to paint. It's a dance of tech, cranes, trucks, and bikes. And this yard also builds military vessels, including submarines, which the 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 US government that if they so wish we will build submarines for them uh in the United States and in Philadelphia, just like we do in Korea.
Yeah, is the ultimate goal for your company to build nuclear submarines for the US navy? Another way Hanwh says it wants to help the US. 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 We 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.
¶ Policy Conflicts And National Security
Colin Graybow, a trade expert at the Libertarian Cato Institute, explains that a century-old law called the Jones Act. requires that any cargo shipped between US 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 this seems like an easy problem to solve. Go build the ship, transport the gas. Except the math doesn't work. If you want to build one of those ships in Asia, the cost is around$260 million. Here in the United States, about a billion dollars.
Well wait, are there parts of this country that cannot get natural gas because of this law?
That's right.
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. So we take a stance against Russia and on 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.
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, fifty 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 uh shipbuilders just use American made steel? There's no tariff on those.
That's true.
But when we put heavy tariffs on imported steel, we drive those costs up, that's a great opportunity for Americans to raise their own price. What we 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 ally 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 uh 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 their 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 rate visas and our team is uh 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 US 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.
It's like aid for the United States. Wouldn't it be more profitable and wiser if the United States just bought the ships from Korea?
doesn't solve the problem. At the end of the day, shipbuilding is a national security necessity. The US needs to be able to secure our own commerce. We need to be able to export our own energy.
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. Um 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. With gas prices becoming increasingly volatile due to the war, the president has temporarily suspended the Jones Act to ease the transport of oil and gas within the US.
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¶ Dogs As Aging Research Models
Everyone knows the old adage about dogs being man's best friend, but you may not know that dogs might also be one of man's best hopes to treat age-related illnesses. That's because our canines develop many of the same diseases we do, including dementia. As we first reported last March, dogs' brains are a lot like ours, so studying how dementia and other diseases naturally progress in them may also help us.
That's what the Dog Aging Project is all about: unlocking secrets to a longer, healthier life for humans and our four-legged friends.
What do you think? 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 he ever seem more irritable?
Yes.
The dog aging project is a collaboration of dog owners, scientists, and veterinarians studying dogs. More than fifty thousand of them so far by collecting data on their diets and exercise. analyzing blood samples, and doing MRIs of dogs' brains. Did you always want to be a doctor? 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 gosh. We know about three or four or five ways to slow aging in laboratory animals. Some of those are gonna work in dogs.
You think that's possible?
Uh 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 neurologists for animals.
A lot of people are surprised.
And you believe looking at dogs and looking at dogs' brains can help us not only help dogs, but but humans as well.
Yes, of course. Absolutely. There's no d 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 ninety percent 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 another species, but a species that very closely mimic naturally occurring diseases of aging in humans. Cancer, dementia, all these diseases that we see as humans age occur in dogs.
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, you uh obviously you would have to do it from the age of one to sixty, seventy, eighty. Exactly.
Exactly. So many decades versus five, ten years. So we just check to make sure his sensory's good.
¶ Insights From Canine Cognitive Decline
McGrath has been tracking hundreds of dogs to see how their cognitive ability changes as they age, including twelve year old Murphy, a German shepherd poodle mix.
They're still in the middle.
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 do you do in a situation like this?
Just go along with it. He asked me out on a date.
Really?
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.
Yeah. Murphy's like his nanny dog. 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 had never heard those, you know. 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.
Yeah, come on.
In games like these, dogs are shown where a treat is hidden and seconds later allowed to go and get it. Okay. Yeah. When it was Murphy's turn, he struggled, wanting to stay with Pat, too anxious to do the test.
Thank you.
On the second try, he got a little turned around and
Thank you.
but eventually found the tree.
There you go.
Atta 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 um in terms of his challenges with his tasks um both here and at home.
Another dog, Ralph, was also tested. At fourteen, he's already shown signs of advanced dementia. 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 fifty scientific studies so far, many of which found correlations between lifestyle, environment, and disease risk.
One finding, dogs that live with other dogs appear to suffer from fewer diseases. And when it comes to cognitive decline, dogs that don't exercise are found to have a six times greater chance of developing dementia.
¶ Brain Similarities And Longevity Research
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 twenty years, he studied thousands of human brains looking for causes of Alzheimer's. His motivation for participating in the dog aging project was watching his mother suffer from Alzheimer's. and also seeing his dog spring decline from what looked like to him the same disease, what some call doggy dementia.
So that spring when she was a healthy, happy dog.
Tongue out, tail wagging.
She's she was a happy dog, yeah. And this is spring uh near the end of her life. She would get confused and 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. Wow. Dr. Keene showed us how similar dogs' brains are to humans.
You see the dog brain has the same frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital.
It's the same basic shape as the human brain.
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 eighties who was not demented. This is a person who was in their seventies who was demented. And so the most important sort of thing to notice. Is how much different in size they are. I'm gonna let you hold this if that's okay. So just grab on there. Yep. You can you can sort of feel how much different.
The weight difference between a healthy brain and an atrophied brain is is
Yeah.
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.
Dementia in dogs also results in enlarged spaces and brain shrinkage.
This is Spring's brain?
Under a microscope, Springs Brain, one of the first to be donated to the Dog Aging Project, shows beta amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's.
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 forty 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 increase life expectancy by a remarkable 60%. That's led some longevity researchers and influencers to suggest rapamycin for human use.
To understand whether it might work in dogs, Julie Moreno, a molecular biologist from Colorado State University, helped conduct a pilot study of twelve 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 monkeys' 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 microglial 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 Raphomycin, at least in this study, worked on dogs. Yeah. What did you think when you first saw this?
I was super excited.
You were what's your hope in doing this study?
If it works on 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 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 twenty nineteen by thirty one year old Celine Hollywood.
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 ten 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.
Yeah.
Aging drug is about delaying and slowing the rate of decline that a dog or a human has over time to give them more healthier years. It's not something that you'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. Hollyways company has raised more than two hundred and fifty milyen dollars to bring its drugs to market.
If we can achieve this, this is a massive multi billion dollar company. If we only do that, we're all happy. But oh by the way, this also unlocks the possibility of us working on human longevity one day. And 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 human with Alzheimer's, you're caring for a dog in this study who, you know, is aging. What have you noticed in terms of similarities?
The thing I notice is that they both need to be loved and cared for.
Four.
Just holding Bill's hand and patting his hand was enough just to decrease that anxiety, decrease that
And that works with Murphy too.
works with Murphy too. Yep.
What Ralph's life meant for science and his family.
I mean your pets are family too, right?
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