Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Hot Topics 2021 Hot Topics and Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series. I'm Jenny Rushlow. I'm the director of the Environmental Law Center and associate dean for environmental programs. And we're very pleased to welcome you all to our online presentation today. Each of the talks in the Hot Topics series is worth one Vermont CLE credit. So if you'd like to get that credit, please keep track of which talks you attend for your records. We'll have time for Q&A after the presentation today, but you can type your question into the chat at any point during the lecture. So please don't hesitate to do that and we'll get to as many as we can in the remaining time after our speaker concludes their remarks. Today, we are very pleased to welcome VLS Professor Pamela Vesselin. Professor Vesselin is an assistant professor at VLS and teaches civil procedure one and two, administrative law, professional law, and courses in animal law. Sorry, professional responsibility. She joined the VLS faculty in 2018. And before that she practiced animal law in North Carolina where she represented individuals and nonprofit organizations and focused on the legal needs of pet owners in underserved communities. She received her JD cum laude from VLS after which she clerked for the Vermont trial courts and earned an LLM with honors in food and agriculture law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Her research and scholarship focuses on industrial animal production and the constitutional implications of regulating animal treatment at both the federal and state levels. Today, Professor Vesselin will present a talk titled The CAFO. Okay. Sorry, I'll say that again. Turn, turn, talk. I'm not sure where the feedback's coming from. Professor, would you mind muting for a moment and see if that doesn't affect you? Okay. The talk today is titled The CAFO version to alternate realities in administrative law. Please join me in welcoming Professor Pamela Vesselin. Thank you, Dean Rushlow. It's a pleasure to be here. Normally I do the hot topic in person and I see all those of you getting your CLE credits and I hope you were doing well on the other side of the divide here. As Dean Rushlow said, my topic today is entitled The CAFO version 2.0, Alternate Realities and Administrative Law. Based this title on a concept that I put to you as the beginning of the story and that is that the CAFO model as we know it today has taken economic efficiency about as far as it can go. Stunning advancements though in genetic engineering offer us at this point two distinctly different possible futures for CAFO agriculture. On the one hand, one possible future for CAFO agriculture uses intentional genomic alteration or genetic engineering to manipulate and select for traits at the animal's genetic level. IGA can be used to extend input, output efficiencies beyond the limits of selective breeding or it might be used to breed animals that need specific customer or consumer preferences or medical needs, perhaps even allergies. Or they might be engineered to mitigate well-known environmental impacts such as the emission of methane from dairy cattle. The alternative, however, of CAFO 2.0 although it draws on related genetic engineering technologies produces a completely different model and that is one that uses cellular agriculture or cellular reproduction technologies to produce animal end products but not the animals themselves. What am I talking about? Lab cultured meat, cultured meat, synthetic meat, anything, whatever, it goes by many names but I'll probably refer to it mostly as cultured meat. This is technically grown from a cell in a process that I'm going to briefly touch on in a few minutes but it essentially creates the end product without going through the process of birth through slaughter stages of live animals or any of the externalities or most of the externalities associated with them. So that's a big choice. And the choice between these two futures really lies with the administrative state where the USDA and the FDA as a division of HHS, Health and Human Services are basically engaged in, for the most part, a regulatory turf war that is aggravated a bit by what I would say potentially dubious congressional authority and certainly unclear executive policy direction. So these are what I want to talk about today and kind of ask some questions at the end of things to think about as we move forward. So why do I say the CAFO as we know it today is basically tapped out and it's about as efficient as it's going to get? Well, think about where we get for the most part meat, poultry, eggs, dairy from upwards of 90% to 98% are produced by horizontally consolidated, vertically integrated, small handful of producers that breed and raise, slaughter and process almost all of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the United States. They have a almost complete monopoly and monopsony and antitrust laws have at least to this point not been used to address that. A big secret or not a big secret, a big cornerstone really one of the secrets of success for the CAFO is minimized input costs by input costs I mean the amount of land, feed, water, labor, expenses that are used to produce meat and dairy. Because of high density confinement of animals on a CAFO they the animals themselves require less land obviously feed in water and it takes fewer people to take care of them. Now consumers and animal welfare advocates, public safety, public food safety advocates have been pushing back for various reasons on some of the most confining practices like battery cages for egg laying hens and gestation crates for breeding cells. So there is some, that resistance actually that's one way that the CAFO model has really met its end. But another cornerstone and one that doesn't get as much press is the advanced selective breeding practices that is the creation of very specific breeds that have certain traits, traits like certain amount of white meat on broiler chickens versus dark meat. So qualities of meat, size of eggs, size of a litter. So that's reproductive traits. Today's cows and pigs and chickens, et cetera, grow larger more rapidly and convert feed to energy more efficiently than anything that even closely resembles the types of, the versions of these animals of 50 to 75 years ago. And they're also supplemented with various pharmaceuticals, most of them either unregulated or as far as dispensation goes, but certainly under-regulated. Just some examples of what do I mean. Specialized breeds, these are closely guarded intellectual secrets belonging to the producers. Nearly all of our milk today comes from cows that produce three times as much milk per year as cows of 80 years ago. Chickens that are bred for meat, often referred to as broilers, they grow twice as large in half the time it took to reach maturity in 1925, so nearly 100 years ago. For some perspective of what that type of rapid growth means, if you grew that fast as one of these birds, by the time you were two years old, you'd be 350 pounds. So think about your two-year-old skeleton bearing that much weight. Egg-laying hens today have been selectively bred to produce now that the standard is, I'll say, on average 280 eggs, some of them boast as much as 300 eggs a year. But egg-laying hens initially lay somewhere around 15 eggs a year. We're talking about a 20 times increase in egg production. Despite these radical changes in animal productivity that have been available to selective breeders, traditional breeding methods, haven't really done much to mitigate animal suffering. Although, as sort of an anecdote, there have been producers that have tried to claim this. Back in the early 2000s, Smithfield claims, Smithfield farms claimed that it had isolated and eliminated what are called the stress gene in hogs, with the result being that Smithfield hogs suffered less stress than hogs raised by their competitors. This story is told in Matthew Stolle's excellent book, Dominion, that was published in the early 2000s. Of course, that's pure nonsense. It's not that it isn't possible today necessarily, but it certainly wasn't verified. Now, is it verifiable? Potentially. Ethologists, those who study animal behavior, might be able to support or refute this type of claim with animal studies, but that was just, that claim was nonsense. The reality is that breeding for conformity and activity has led to chronic suffering from excessive burden on the animals' metabolisms, their internal organs, and their skeletal systems. And the result is, for example, dairy cows because they are producing offspring every 12 to 15 months and being milked nine months of the year by the time that they are past their height of productivity and sent to slaughter, many of them have depleted calcium. They suffer from osteoporosis and other stressors on their skeletal systems. And this is really where you hear about downer cattle or lame cattle that go to slaughter and are unable to stand up or walk on their own when they reach slaughter. So that's just one example of how animal welfare suffered due to selective breeding. Now, selective breeding hasn't also, much hasn't been done to address the considerable and mounting environmental and public health externalities of mass animal confinement either. Although some advances have been made as it relates to pharmaceuticals and combinations of foods that are fed to farmed animals. So we're tapped out on efficiency, that is production yield using the technologies that we have, but the environmentalists and animal advocates still aren't happy. So this is the end of the line for KFO 1.0. Here's, we've got this choice, as I mentioned at the beginning of what's next. So we're turning to door number one, genetic engineering. This is not selective breeding. Selective breeding is you take two animals that have traits that you would prefer to carry on and you breed that way. Genetic engineering is actually the intentional invasive disruption of the normal gene sequence at the molecular level. And then there's another type of animal produced using genetic engineering called transgenesis. This is the introduction of foreign genetic material, say from another animal or bacteria to alter the traits of the animal. The traits that are selected for in the genetic engineering process, at least the ones that we've seen so far, are of course, as you would expect, market driven. They respond to the demands of producers, first for traits that have economic impacts or perhaps to mitigate costs of regulations. So some examples. This has been around for a while. This genetic engineering of farmed animals. That is, when I say been around, I mean that scientists have been exploring this and attempting to create the ideal breed of certain farmed animals really internationally. So in Seoul, Korea, for example, scientists produced a GE strain of pig that had twice as much muscle as regular pigs. So the pork that was produced was higher in protein, lower in fat. And if you Google this, you'll actually see these pictures. It is bizarre to see a pig that's ripped really, has muscles that you can see. A similar double muscle trait was developed in a breed of cow called the Belgian blue by selecting for genetic defect that creates extra muscle. Of course, this is not without its issues. The calves born of Belgian blues, they're so large that they actually require cesarean births that can't be born naturally. Cows, that is dairy and cows bred for meat, they are of course significant producers of the greenhouse gas methane. Studies in the UK and in the University of Alberta, Canada, which is not coincidentally the largest beef production region in North America are one of the largest. As well as the USDA Agricultural Research Service continue to fund research projects related to breeding animals that emit less methane, that basically addresses the amount of methane that is released during their digestion process. And then finally, there was another study in Canada known as the Enviro Pig. It no longer exists today, but the transgenic pig was bred to address the phosphorus that is in hog farm waste. That's a major contributor to Alba Blooms and initially was developed by scientists at the University of Gelf as a way to mitigate damage to local water bodies. Used genetic material from a mouse and E. coli bacterium. It was successful in terms of it actually created a pig that actually did do that. It digested more of the phosphorus, less of it was released in the pigs waste. We'll return to the Enviro Pig in just a few minutes. Now in the US, you are probably aware of or have heard of the aqua advantage salmon. This was first actually developed as far back as 1989 by a company that goes by the name Aqua Bounty. The FDA actually approved of the development and sale of aqua advantage. This is genetically engineered salmon. This is transgenic actually. It uses a coding sequence from a chinook salmon. I'm not going to get into the actual genetic engineering of it, but it is developed to grow again like broiler chickens almost twice as large in half the time. This is of course for marine based or it's basically water based aqua production of salmon, so farmed salmon. Now just because the FDA approved it doesn't mean that it is available today. It has been the subject of over a decade of litigation and its latest status is still or it's ultimately what will happen to it is unknown and I'll return to that as well. And most recently in December of just this past year, the FDA approved an IGA pig called the gal safe pig. That's G-A-L-S-A-F-E. It's got the word safe in the title, so it must be safe, right?  And that is as far as the human consumption and why it was developed. It was perhaps you've heard of this mysterious allergy to meat that is occurring in some of the southern states. It's been linked to a certain bite from a certain tick, but when somebody develops this allergy, they really can no longer eat red meat, beef, pork and lamb. And so this gal safe pig has been developed so that people who have mild or severe allergic reactions to what's known as this alpha gal sugar that's in red meat, this pig does not develop that and so it can be consumed by people with this allergy. Talk about reacting to market needs. Now, GE, genetically engineered animals could also be developed to eliminate or mitigate production diseases that come from high density confinement of genetically conformed species. So when you have a whole lot of animals that are genetically in conformance with one another when one of them gets sick, their herd usually gets the same thing. And so the risk of infectious diseases running through a facility of thousands of animals is high. Well, for example, since the 1980s, there's been an illness that goes by the acronym PRRSV, it's porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus. This virus over the past decade has just decimated the pork industry. It's basically a virus that little piglets get and once it has infiltrated a facility overnight, there'll be mass deaths because these piglets just basically aren't able to retain water. And there's no vaccine for it and scientists have been working madly for years to come up with some way to address it. Well, turns out that intentional genomic alteration seems to be offering a potential solution to that. Obviously, the industry is hot to get that approved. It's also possible that genetic engineering could be used to address some welfare concerns. That is like breeding dairy cows that don't have horns, so they don't have to be dehorned or aren't dehorned.  Male calves are unnecessary to the dairy process, dairy production process. So do that as well as egg laying breeders have hands lay only female chicks as opposed to male chicks. Again, male chicks are unnecessary in the egg laying production process. So the sky's the limit, right? Let's look at door number two now, the cellular meat. This is obviously a very different type of CAFO. Lab-based or grown meat products are actually not grown on a farm at all, but in a bioreactor. Today, there are a number of companies in the tens, I would say over 20 companies that are actively funded and developing beef, pork, chicken, tuna, salmon, even eggs. And very recent technologies in stem cell, biotechnology has been able to, has really made this a possible substitute to animal production for these products. Whether it's cultured meat or use of CRISPR technologies, basically what happens is that a cell in an animal is isolated, nutrients are added to it, and reproduction or proliferation occurs. It's extremely sensitive process. It's extremely expensive. The very first proof of concept was served in London in 2013 for the ticket price of $330,000. The prices come way down on that, and the process is actually something that could very well be a scalable option for production of meat. In fact, Singapore was the first nation to formally approve cultured meat and began serving it just a few months ago. It sees the development of cultured meat as a way that the country can actually begin to create its own food supply. Right now it imports more than 90% of the food consumed in Singapore, and so it's developed this program called 30 by 30 initiative that it intends to produce 30% of its own food domestically by the year 2030. The upside environmentally of cellular agriculture is pretty obvious. Studies show that depending on what is being developed environmentally, the production can use 7 to 45% less energy. The emission of greenhouse gases is anywhere between 78% and 96% emissions, and of course land use is also minimized to something like 1% of the land used for current CAFO agriculture. Now depending on what technology is being used for the initial biopsy or development of the cell and what is grown in the lab, it may be extracted from alive animals so animal welfare would not be completely eliminated as a concern, but compared to the 9.5 billion animals that are raised and slaughtered for food in this country every year, it's really no comparison at all. So wow, we could go in either direction and the science is certainly getting us there pretty quickly. There's that maxim in law school that the law always is at least a decade behind science and I'd say it's well beyond that. The question really of the adoption or the choice, do we throw our eggs in the basket? Sorry about that. That is using genetic engineering to create animals that address some of our environmental concerns, perhaps even our animal welfare concerns, maybe we can find the stress chain or should we be looking to eliminate the animal agriculture industry as we know it all together? Can they both occur? That choice, which way we go, what shapes the next version of animal agriculture depends on a number of factors. And by the way, if you're interested in cellular agriculture, I commend to you an excellent article by Brian Sylvester, as in Sylvester the Cat and other authors from a Kentucky Journal of Equine and law from 2020. It's called From Petrie Dish to Main Dish. And so that article does a really nice job of laying out not only the regulatory concerns but some of the adoption concerns for cultured meat. But I'm going to narrow this down and do a little comparison of a couple of different factors. First of all, obviously if we're going, if cultured meat or genetically modified animal products are going to be sold for human consumption in the United States, there must be some type of regulation, right? Well, yes, their food and ag law will come into play here. And there are two primary agencies that have either asserted authority or are in dispute over it. I will say first that this is not an original opinion, but our food and ag law system is not ready for either of these technologies. Anybody familiar with food law knows that already we have a fractured system in which the USDA and the FDA, a division of HHS, are working sometimes together, but there's a division of regulation over the production and sale and transport and labeling of food. We can put it in pretty basic terms by saying that the USDA is essentially tasked with the slaughter and processing and sale to point of purchase of products that are strictly livestock meat, poultry, and it shares responsibility for eggs. And so derived from the animal whole, that would be more USDA. There are two main federal laws in play here. That's the Federal Meat Inspection Act at 21 USC 601 and the Poultry Products Inspection Act at 21 USC 451. These laws are not so much laws that deal with the animals as they are alive, but the results of the slaughter process and so these are mostly food laws. There's inspection of processing facilities. It's a big part of it as well as accuracy of labeling. So that's the USDA. The inspection part of USDA for federal meat inspection and poultry products inspection is called the FSIS, Food Safety Inspection Service. This is a division of USDA. This agency is tasked with, they're at the slaughterhouses, they are inspecting the meat processing as it goes. And they have a role to play, at least as the USDA asserts, in the poultry meat process. Same applies for the Poultry Products Inspection Act. Another division or another agency in USDA, AFIS, that's APHIS, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. That has been traditionally the agency that's taken the lead on approving the use of the introduction of genetically engineered plants or crops for human consumption. So traditionally, AFIS of USDA has been the one that spearheaded the work to approve of the use of, say, a soybean that is resistant to roundup, but is, sorry, roundup ready is what I'm trying to say. Soybeans, for example. Now, that's not, AFIS is not actually apparently going to be the section of the USDA that is in charge of or has authority over genetically engineered animals. Instead, the FDA has claimed authority over genetically engineered animals. And this was somewhat of a controversial move back in the early 2000s. The FDA, of course, its main statute that it enforces is the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. One section of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act is the Animal Drug section, and that's at 21 USC 360B. That's little B. And the Animal Drug section of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act is a part of the law that the FDA, in which the FDA approves the use of certain pharmaceuticals in the four animal use, whether it's an agricultural production or treatment of animals, say that a veterinarian would prescribe in treating your dog, for example. But the definition of drug in 360B is read by the FDA to mean that it also covers the process of genetic alteration. So the FDA basically asserted itself as the agency that was charged with or had the authority to lead the process of approving or denying applications for genetically engineered animals, whether it's for therapeutic health, therapeutic or food consumption. The USDA did not take kindly to that, nor did a number of food safety, consumer safety, public health, and animal welfare advocates. And so when the FDA first asserted this authority, it did so as it applied to that aqua bounty, aqua advantage salmon, the transgenic salmon that I said grew so much faster and had been the subject of so much litigation. That first challenge was challenging the FDA's authority to actually regulate GE animals under the food, drug, and cosmetic deck. Ultimately, it won that case or at least has won it, at least it would seem. A Northern District of California judge ruled that the FDA indeed squarely has the authority to lead the charge on approving GE animals. Still, this now the initial approval was in 2015. In 2019, the court said that the court affirmed the FDA's authority and yet still you can't buy aqua advantage salmon. And that is because while it's gone through multiple additional challenges in court as well as there being uncertainty about how to label it and Congress has had to at least attempted to step in and decide how to label genetically engineered animal food products. But right now, why you don't have aqua advantage salmon on your table or at your store is that the same court in California granted partial summary judgment for the challengers which includes Center for Food Safety and the Institute for Fisheries Resources in a case that challenged the FDA's acts under NEPA. That is, did the FDA take a hard look at what the risks were for fish farming and transgenic salmon when it could get loose or be released in some way to some external body of water and then breed say with other salmon, what would be the effect of that? Now the FDA didn't conduct or have aqua bounty conduct in environmental impact statement. And so right now the court essentially has directed the FDA to go back and correct for that. So there you've got some of the legal challenges for genetically engineered animal products. It's not just going to be getting approval for the food safety, the safety for human consumption. There's also the environmental aspects and NEPA is going to play a large role in that. I should say that in one of the last days of the Trump administration, former Secretary of Agriculture Sunning Perdue on the way out the door signed a memorandum of understanding with the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, not the administrator of the FDA who refused to sign it, signed a memorandum of understanding saying that the FDA would transfer a great deal of its authority to the USDA in order to speed up approval of GE animals like the pigs that can combat or resist viruses. So right now there is some dispute about which agency has regulatory authority where that stands. Now, if you're interested in this, I would Google Center for Food Safety, ALDF, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, letter, IGA animals, something like that. And you'll pull up on the Center for Food Safety site 13 or so groups got together and wrote letters to the secretaries of HHS and Secretary Vilsack at USDA, urging them to take a look at this, to take a look at this situation and to dissolve that memorandum of understanding and have the FDA resume its authority because it alone has the, at least it has more incentive statutorily and it has the experience to insist on more testing for the safety of these animals, not just the animals as used for human consumption, but the animals themselves. So trying to wrap it up with some of the other concerns, the whole regulatory process is one issue. Now, the USDA and the FDA have actually come to an understanding when it comes to culture of meat. They have signed a formal agreement that basically says, here's, these are the different responsibilities that each of the agencies will take and the development of it. The question to me, though, is not how will the different agencies regulate, but how will they be championing it or who will champion it? If you think about the USDA and you think about, especially Secretary Vilsack, we've seen him before, he was the Secretary of Agriculture under the Obama Administration, not, and while he was away during the Trump Administration, he headed up a lobbying group for the dairy, dairy industry. This is, this is somebody who has a long background in industrial animal agriculture. There is, there, this is the, this is what USDA does. It promotes and supports traditional conventional producers. Is it going to be able to, will it have the political will to mount the kind of effort that it's going to take to promulgate regulations, to conduct studies, dispense research and development funds in furtherance of cultured meat as opposed to genetically altered meat. The, the USDA has spent a fair amount of, of money on in supporting the development of the genetically engineered side of, of the, of the alternate realities. On the cultured meat side, there are numerous investors, including some big names like Elon Musk and Bill Gates and Richard Branson all, they're supportive of companies that are developing cultured meats. In addition to the potential or not potential, likely years of litigation that could take place for either of these, the introduction of either of these technologies large scale. There's also the question of, and a related question of labeling, how will it be labeled? Furthermore, how will consumers accept it?  Now, I think for the, the cultured meat question is really the more interesting of the two. If you're a vegetarian or a vegan, you already perhaps are eating plant-based food, meat substitutes or maybe not at all. You may have noticed that the companies that make plant-based meat substitutes have finally hit on a decent, a decent title, plant-based as opposed to some of the really poor branding that used to use like gluten nuggets or something like that. But they appeal to people who already don't want to eat meat or they want to cut down on the amount of meat they eat. So are those, is that the same target demographic as the cultured meat would go to? Or how would companies that produce cultured meat, how will they cross that chasm and get enough of the general population, the general consumers to see this as a viable substitute? Because you can bet that the industrial agriculture industry is going to work very hard to launch the campaigns of franken foods. That's going to be, that's an obvious thing that we're going to see, this scaring people off. So the money that will be thrown at trying to brand and market these will be something else. Finally, I guess I'll leave you with a question of whether or not we should be revisiting or visiting the idea of some additional regulatory authority, whether it's an additional division of USDA or FDA or perhaps a standalone agency, maybe created by Congress that oversees the animal welfare aspects of both of these technologies. Right now it doesn't exist. Most of our food law has very little to do, as I said, with the animals while they're still alive. And so the concerns, especially as they relate to genetically engineered animals, really are quite daunting. And so there needs to be some method of, there needs to be a voice for animals and the protection of them at least to some extent. Should we actually approve of larger scale production of genetically engineered animals for food? And so with that, I'll just stop if you have any questions or any ideas or want to share anything about this topic. Thank you so much, Professor Veselin. For our listeners, our viewers, we have a few minutes to take some questions from the audience. So if you'd like to pose a question, please, if you're watching on our website live stream, you can click on watch on live stream that icon at the bottom of the video, and that will bring up the chat box where you can add your question. Or if you're watching on our Facebook live stream, you would add your question to the comment box below. And we'll try to get through as many questions as possible. Okay, first question for you, Professor. What are the perceived human health concerns due to consumption of genetically modified meat? Perceived or actual? I think the question was perceived, right? Yeah. Okay, so when the way that the FDA would be go about approving the use of genetically engineered meat from, say, the galsave pig would be to actually test the quality, the end product itself, the pork, if you will, not the pig while it's still alive, not necessarily the concern is mostly for the end product. Is it as safe or is it safe to be consumed? And so it really is all about the consumer's experience or the consumer's health and their safety in consuming it, not necessarily the safety of the animal. Now, there is some wording in the animal drug section of the FDCA that potentially allows for the FDA to look into or require that companies show that the process itself is safe for the animals, but that has not generally been much of a focus by the FDA up to this point. Okay, thank you. Are there any examples of other countries that have done what they've done regulating this type of meat you think sets an example for what the US should be doing or perhaps the opposite, what we shouldn't be doing? So Singapore is the only country that I know of so far that's actually proved of the use of cultured meat. The EU has gone through an interesting season of litigation that's related. I don't know, perhaps you've seen there have been challenges to plant-based milk and meat products or meat substitutes. There have been challenges to labeling or advertisements that use the word say milk for oat milk or rice milk or soy milk, what have you. And that's something that we've pretty much already settled as it pertains to the same products here in the United States. The commercial speech doctrine really allows for that unless there's an identifiable cause for confusing the consumer. And the fact that the EU is dealing with that makes me think that the industry, that animal agriculture industry in Western European countries are mounting more efforts to challenge, this is my guess, this is my prediction, but I think that if the EU, when the EU starts to try and market or prove of either of these two types of, well, if it's cultured meat, that they can expect a serious challenge from Animal Ag. One of the things, I don't know if this is what the person was thinking about to ask this question, but in former Soviet block countries, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, those that lived under communist rule for decades during the development of some technologies like, say, more advanced landlines for telephones. So while we were getting telephones in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, most people living in those countries, unless you were really wealthy, didn't have a landline. That is a phone, telephone hardwired in their house or apartment. And so when they gained independence, there was really the idea of going, introducing that technology didn't make as much sense as instead going for the next thing. And so that's why you see countries like Estonia and Poland, for example, really excelling in high tech. They've adopted the next technology, so wireless tech, they do almost anything over their cell phones, right? And I bring this up because I'm thinking about developing countries that are looking to do what Singapore is trying to do. If they don't already have an established and trenched CAFO system, culture need could be an opportunity there to leave ahead of the technology and use the next, take advantage of the bypassing many of the externalities that are plaguing us today. Thank you. I think we have time for just one more question. So that'll be, we've heard a lot about COVID and other pandemics potentially being caused by deforestation and loss of habitat, causing ecosystem disruption, and that can lead to animals that are produced for food, contracting a disease like COVID, and then passing on to humans. That's something that people have been told. Does that, the fact that that's happened with COVID, do you think that makes a difference, or have you seen a difference in this artificially grown meat as a result of kind of this moment in time that we're in? You know, I hope that it does have some impact. I think that, I mean, we don't even really know for sure whether or not that the initial transference to humans of COVID-19 was, or the coronavirus was, although it is a zoonotic disease, that is animals and non-human animals can contract it or be infected. It doesn't, we don't know, my understanding is we don't know exactly the source, right? We haven't found that yet. But you know, we do know is, we do know that that swine flu, for example, didn't have the same kind of devastating effects, but was a pretty serious flu back in the early 2000s. And that was a, that absolutely was traced to a, to the hog industry and kind of an interesting, to me anyway, anecdote. Swine flu very rapidly rebranded by the pork industry as H1N1 was that the scientists, essentially, it seems like the majority agree that it was first found in Mexico in some hog production operations owned by Smithfield. And there is even a little boy who was identified as patient zero as the one who became the first human sufferer of swine flu or H1N1 in this little town in Mexico. Has a statue of him in their downtown Plaza in the middle of the town as, as hopefully a tourist attraction. So my answer to that is not yet. And I wish that it would. We have such short memories, but the connection between mass animal confinement and genetic conformity and, and the, the rise of antibiotic resistance and, and the spread of, of zoonotic diseases is, it's undeniable, right? You know, I guess the question is, what are we willing to give up? What are we willing to risk in order to have cheap meat and dairy? Thank you. It seems like a good, a good, a good question to end on though. We know, we know there's, you know, there's not an easy answer. Okay. Thank you so much. Professor Bessel. And that was a really interesting talk. I want to thank our viewers for joining us today as well. And our next hot topics talk will be here on June 24th. Again, at noon Eastern. And we hope you can join us then. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.


So I'm here with a professor Neda Seeman who was one of the early heads of the section at ICDP and we thought we had a short chat and Maybe you could start by telling us a bit how how you got interested in mathematics I was your your career early on and so on how how you arrived at this point Okay, I got interested in mathematics already when I was I think 13-14 Already school I was studying the schools about seven kilometers from my place And there's a small library in that small town. Did you did you walk to I know we went by bullock hot with what bullock hot What is that?  Oh, really? And the cooktors, that's it So so I was from a small village from a family of agriculture So in that there is a small library Well, for some reason there was someone who was text books I don't know why they had to say a small town usually Books so I read them and I sort of got interested and then I said I will do the search You thought of course having any idea what it is, but so really quite quite a statement for so So well and my family So I was sort of spoiling the walls by drawing pictures and so on Just many diagrams So and therefore they all But the family and I think my first break was I studied a place called Lila College And this is the college run by Jesus this is a high school level No, no, no, no college means that university university under graduate taught in colleges like the British system And then the real break was There was a person who was teaching mathematics. He's a French dissuade and he was a student of a In touch with people like Larry and some of our classmates and apparently even gave a lecture on shoes and It's you really introduced as to some kind of decent mathematics And you know the you may be surprised that's probably the first time so-called modern as it was taught in India So that was And you always also instead teaching in the way of a he and the whole In such a way that concept for emphasize not only computations and so on So what's the very sort of French style and so I already Of course, yes, too. I wonder how you managed to introduce this Anyway, I did see who asked me and also said something was my classmate. I say we're the same class so to Go to Tata Institute a few words about sure. Yes So this was I'm not talking about let's say Around 52 Then this was a place which was started by hopey. Baba was a physicist and The important thing was it was a soon after independence. Therefore Nehru was giving support for these people for science in particular to Baba and There the mathematics second Baba was of course a theoretical basis Because of that interest in some other mathematics, so you want to start a mathematics and he got He talked to I think Helman Weiler and And they suggested one young man K. Chandrasekhar was in 30s It's as it's a while at the time To start mathematics in in that answer. He was in his 30s But he had a very big contact with very French mathematicians as well as Because he was in Princeton for three years And also there I think you have mischievous How mathematics was organized in Germany before the war and also this is time in the US And try to But in one of the main things he was He she writes a university in fifties and France was the sort of center He invited most of the French people to come and teach not to teach work He was himself in some sense was brought in the British system So for example at that time Schwartz came Three times something they will come and stay for two months and do lectures and the job of the student Is to write the notes write the notes of the course because I think that these available this note Yes, yes, I can I wrote on a complex Manifold you didn't And it was amazing.  So there's nice or something Tell your piece and you can also questions once he said something you can also be fooled by I said what is This one this one classes were in English And then Schwartz went and persuaded I think talking to To send The name so they all came and give system and you will see mothers after one or two years of the course There will be some high level paper by the students How does the material of the course So Very fertile ground very fertile and the point is these people got involved directly with those Fantastic people and then somehow absorbed So interesting that somehow you mentioned France US Germany and England as part of a sort of Yes, but England was not so much I was also say Germany for some legal district three times And every time gave us courses and there is some very important work also came out of lectures by So it was So that was the well-planned and also there was also people were also Well, let's say that they can have you mean in somebody does work. You don't wait for years for normal kind of promotion and so on so forth That was very well done. You can correct my can be some You know, so that is it how it was So I'm not so the students were given complete freedom to do what they want I mean provided they knew the people are serious and doing some work They're not force because two of them were there one was a number three is Zegel student the other one was more and Analysis more or less the British type But they never insisted that we should do anything and then the committee They left you free So of course that the Institute became a powerhouse in mathematics is there still is So that's how I mean that kind of also it was also lucky that very good students And there was freedom to do and also the main thing is the contact with And so that you are also aware of what was going on And to some extent also while we're at contact with the big people You're also a little away so that we can Need not be too much in place. They were there for a few months, and then they would let me You know sometimes you may not be able to take on your own or whatever it is So it was it was a nice balance So that's how it was and So coming to a closer to ICDP. How how was the Bit of the early history of the section Okay, so I think I mean to start it here 86 or something 86 I believe something like that. So around that time See, they already there are some schools In mathematics, I think But just you know Then I think around that time he asked me that I could come here at that time I could come Sorry, we said can you come for six months? I said perhaps I could but if you want to start something this can't So I think afterwards he I think he asked for the years To start this but he was was not here In Then I also used to come I think maybe 90 or 91 I can get the school and Salam invited me for his famous lunch, you know, he used to have lunch in the cafeteria When everybody has to go So He said Say I mean I must have said you know my children are now studying or something and then He said can you come And then that's all So that's his starting point and already I think He's self But I must say he gave all the support I I also said, okay I I want complete freedom to learn this thing and the some kind of support more That's what he gave for the other sections And he said I will and he did So we just left it at that we never Talked what position nothing I didn't even know what that's what here. So after one month I get a telegram. He's one way. I'll be extremely honored Be sure and say if you can come here and take full charge of mathematics That's how it started first So then As he said he was always as much as possible Whatever support he can support it. You know, of course there he had himself problems. He means not to him Center itself as often down some financial problems But anyway, we were not particularly affected by that. I mean not because we were by the machine We are not sort of you reduce less than the others There was no And then I think I think I would say one of the best access in this place was China I think you should ask for example But a certain stage now if At least offer doesn't people who are sort of very many people and also powerful people China They're all postdocs. Yeah, they were all persons And also it was food immediately. I mean even now See apparently they gave every year some special awards, which is very substantial and for four or five years the people who are Postdocs, everyone went back got it. I say And I think one of the reasons I mean was see these people are very of course very intelligent and so on Very well trained also in one form But it's not only for Chinese for many people who come here at that time now But they did not know what to do with that knowledge, you know what I mean you have to go to problems which are Which are packed the attention of people or something like that So a couple of things with that one is If we don't have here anybody To send them forward to that someone you're up For example, this is a you was here. Yes And I think I first sent him to you can host or somebody like that For two months and three months Or if I can myself That was I think Once they are shown the way immediately The other thing I would say is one more thing was some of you can especially of we can French Yeah, it's French And what happened there was many of them Once they were quite well trained and done some work, but they were sort of lost once they went back to Africa But what I did was once I had a small meeting here So it's also technical well invited some of these people from Africa these people plus the their platform who are working in France and Had a meeting here could be also taught mathematics, but the main thing was To have a program you must they can meet in Africa also inviting people from so different people also I think you some support But for a five years it was working. I don't know what happened afterwards. That's the other year from therefore countries They will meet they will be there. Yeah, and the French people would go I think the French also That was okay But then we don't know what and there's one more thing I want to say. I don't know whether The problem is about school sometimes people said okay people come here one school and they go away then what happens then And also, you know that in the many of several countries the number of people working on this is very large. Yes So and I Purchased some very good people They prepared they were prepared to run three years successively I mean one year after School analysis which will start a particular level at the end of the first school then a small exam People who are reasonably good Call for the next school after one year. Of course others also And yeah, so at the end of three years, hopefully Some new set of offer doesn't be efficient people you will form It was fairly successful, but probably not as much as one expected But the amazing thing was we these three top-class analysts were prepared to commit themselves for three years To do these courses these courses. These were here And of course, you also know the number of Colleges So overall you would you would say the ICTP was a very influential Institution in terms of what it did for I think After this Well, I know one case of a now is assignments associate Alicia Dickens time that Told me that he she basically learned all the algebraic geometry. She knows the ICTP in a very long school So certainly has a big effect in a lot of people. Yeah, and in fact China I met somebody I was about to So that guy, you know, he's a great thing You wanted to come and talk to me so you come to me after five o'clock in the evening because I may have something So you will come Somewhere on books Very good, so well I don't know if you had something else to add Okay, and also schools, yes I mean He really got him more in this But he also said you know certain things Just we done better Really Must be quite a thrill to have this level of mathematicians here Some form other involved Also the other one completely different one It's time to get friends I did Succeed in getting friends from India and China. I'll say Well at the moment as you know, we we gave funds for the Ramanujan price from from India For people who come to India the understanding was The India will In fact the person in charge the DST secretary at that time Cheney and signed In fact, there's maybe a photograph somewhere and he said okay. This is now 10, but we can give you more or something Which he meant the trouble is if you go on changing Right these are political No, no, it's a scientist sort of but if you go somebody else comes I don't anyway, so But it was working for a few years, but afterwards. I think you have any time to get the money the I'm trying also the same thing happened in Argentina we found there was Some agreement, but it was not working Then we'll try to contact So I mean see I thought these countries should at least support a few Actually When I had with the National Board for mathematics, there's something India Well, we tried We have we have a few agreements with with Chile for example, San Juan's but at the moment are sort of small in scope I mean it'd be certainly interesting to have more more contacts of this sort more agreements So anyway, I think as far as I was personally concerned. I thought it was one of the Sort of food for three years of mine of your own career That's very nice to hear. Well, we certainly are very happy of your contribution. I'm sure a lot of people are as well So thank you very much for talking to us And also you'll see we still talking you must have seen this What's called? Fundamental geometry explained or something It's a party bestseller now. Oh, yeah, uh-huh very good. See this probably I mean gothendex Fondman the geometry as you break which was This bullbaki talks And that's how I learned because otherwise we read all these other books is not possible. It's a summary of many of these ideas Then after 25 years or 30 years We thought we should sort of Because things have happened And also because all French And you see that some of the top people were involved in that later like climb and use And that's that's all what all the young people Very good. So, okay. Thank you very much


Escape. Escape tonight to Paris of 500 years ago. The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations presents Escape. A new series of programs of which this the fifth is The Sire de Maltwares Door by Robert Louis Stevenson Produced and directed by William M. Robeson. The pen of Robert Louis Stevenson has been an avenue of escape for three generations. Our grandparents thrilled to the macabre metamorphosis of Dr. Jekyll just as we will never forget the nursery menace called Long John Silver. Tonight we escape with Robert Louis Stevenson down another avenue which leads to Paris in 1429 and the amazing adventure of The Sire de Maltwares Door. Dark of the moon. 1429. Paris. The House of Burgundy holds the throne of France and English men-at-arms patrol the narrow streets. Troublest times for any man to be lost on foot at night. You there. Over here. Here by the wall. What's this? Now the shadows themselves are speaking. I've no shadow. A real-life human being. I've managed to get myself lost in these confounded alleys. Can you tell me where I am? Well, no. Find young Cavalier, no less. And he's lost. I'm trying to find the both of them in. Will this street lead me there? At one street is as good as another, and none of them will ever lead a man anywhere. Oh, come now. You must know something about this part of Paris. Think, man, a patrol may pass in any moment. You are wanted then. I have a safe conduct passed from the captain of the garrison. Safe conduct, he says. And if I'm a good little dude, you're here in the dark of the night. Well, you're certainly not helping my chances, any. No, the only safe conduct you have is that sword is swinging at your side. Wait, wait, quiet. They're coming this way. I am inclined to think you're right. I've got a run for it. Tell them nothing. Well, I should tell them what to hold. Wait, hold. Someone's there. Speak up. Who are you? Speak up, is it?  That served with the mad Prince Charlie himself. May he rest in peace. An old campaigner, eh? Where are you from, soldier? Front and blue, from a smarter outfit in Bivouac than the likes of you in quarters. A bit in the sculpture, men. Seen anybody about all the time? Not, but shadows and tankards of air. Fine French Cavalier who departed hence without a biolead just now. Where'd he go? Who knows, perhaps he went one way, maybe the other. I think it was the other there. All right, men. French Cavalier, eh? We'll have him like a thal in a spit. Spread out, cover the street. Keep an eye out, don't let a slip away between you. Forward now, search every corner.  Unfor it now, all right. Ah, this cross street. There's a bare chance they'll pass it by. If I can only get through here. Oh! Oh, no. It's a dead end, unless this leads... No, it's only the door to a house. Caught like a rat in a trap. All right. If it's so written, then so be it. With a bit of luck, there'll be two or three go with me. The door, it's unlocked.  Well, what have I got to lose? That was close. Too close. Now to get out of here and no one in the house will ever be the wiser. What's this? The door's locked. Well, it's a trap. But why? Why would such a thing be done? I came in here by chance, one chance against a million. Wait. It's a light. Somewhere inside the house. Well, my all rights, I should be dead at this moment. So? I've been expecting you all evening. I fear you must be mistaken so my visit is quite unexpected for both of us. That's good. That's very good. For the both of us, you say. That's better. You're here, that's the main point.  Put yourself in ease. We'll arrange our little affairs presently. There seems to be some misunderstanding. You see, your door was standing in... Oh, the door.  So you must know that I had no intention of intruding without an invitation. Without an invitation, is it? Well, we old people are used to such reluctance. When it touches our honor, we cast them out until we find some way of overcoming it. And so, my boy, invitation or not, you are, believe me, most welcome. I hope you'll pardon my saying it, but I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about. Oh, so that's it. Dead to rights, but still pretending, eh? Ah, you're a clever road to the right. Sir! My name is Denis Duboyeu. I am not a guest in your house by my own choice, and I am not accustomed to being... There is the house of Maltoyer, accustomed to certain things, of which you well know. Maltoyer? I should have expected better treatment at the hands of one of the most honored families of France. Honored indeed. Until you, Monsieur Duboyeu, took it upon yourself to dishonor us. Side to Maltoyer, I have attempted to explain that I took a stand before your door to fight off a patrol which I'd encountered in the street. I assure you I had no slight intention of forcing myself a... Since it seems impossible for you to converse with any degree of reason, may I bid you good night. Sir, if you have your right wits, then you're insulting me grossly. And if not, I have no desire to spend further time with the lunacy.  Thinking to get away so easily... No power on earth can make me stay here any longer, even if I'm forced to hack that door of yours to pieces. Ah, I am me. And now, will you please sit down, my dear nephew? Nephew! You lie in your teeth! I said sit down! You think for a minute that I made a little contrivance for the door and stopped short with that?  Try to get away. But if you'd rather stay a free young buck and grimly conversing with an old gentleman, sit where you are in peace. You mean then... I am a prisoner here. I stated the facts. Oh, dear Francois, come in, come in. Thank you, messiah. Tell me, how is she? A little better frame of mind, I hope. She is more resigned, at least, messiah. Well, now, isn't she hard to please? A lightly stripping such as this, well-born and her own choice. What more would the jade wall have, hm? If you'll pardon, the situation is not usual for a young damsel. It is somewhat trying to her blushes. Trying, is it? Ha! She should have thought of that before the dance began. She called the turns, and now she'll do the pain. At the risk of being presumptuous, may I ask who she is? Ha! You hear that, Pierre Francois? Monsieur de Beaulieu wishes to know who she is. I heard, messiah. I am pleased that you find my most casual remark so amusing. So, you'd like to know who she is? Very well. After all, you really should know, young fella. It's only fitting for you to be introduced properly. Come along, come along. I'll take you into she-all-right. Why, that's the reason I planned the whole thing. You stubborn young scoundrel-y blaggard! Come along, my boy, right through this door. After you, sir, if you don't mind. Oh, now, it's not that kind of a trap. Here we are. How are you, my dear? Oh, please, uncle. Please, there's some pity on me. Pity? But I do agree to your more than you've shown for the name of my wife.  It's good to be devout, but it is also necessary to be polite. I have no understanding how you can be so vicious. Oh, that's very unkind. And now, Monsieur de Beaulieu, since we've decided to keep up this farce, allow me to present my niece, Blanc, about you. But such an inhuman thing surely havin' itself. He's not the man. My uncle, this is not the man. I expected you to say as much, my dear. Is it so unfortunate that you couldn't remember his name? It's true. I swear by the Blessed Virgin, I do not know this man. I've never laid eyes on him before. Please, sir, tell him. Tell him we've never seen each other before. For myself at any rate, I've never had that pleasure. Sire, I've not met your lovely niece before this moment. Oh, now isn't that too bad. But it's never too late to begin. Quite often these impromptu marriages turn out very well in the end. Marriage? Sire de Meltois, would you please be kind enough to explain what you mean? Surely you've heard of the custom of marriage. It's quite widely practiced. At least, sir, I've never heard before of such a many acres I perceive you to be. And I have no intention of marrying anyone. Then may I ask what were your intentions, my boy? Oh, well, no matter now. Der François is looking forward to performing the natural right. So he's quite properly ordained, you know. So shall we say, in two hours? Meanwhile, I suggest you become better acquainted. Wait! Uncle, you can't be an earnest.  Forced? How come now, my dear Blanche? Is it possible that you think I'm lying? That you still believe this is the man? Frankly, I do. Well, then you're wrong. I refuse not to leave and to consider... Enough, my dear. You took it upon yourself to dishonor the name of our family. You forfeit it all right whatsoever to question my designs. I consider it a duty to see that you're married with as little delay as possible. Out of the goodness of my heart, I've attempted to find the man of your choice. And I believe I've done so. But if not, then I cannot one jackstraw. Is that perfectly clear?  Perhaps, my dear nephew.  I would sooner die a thousand times. Such a fury against the inevitable. But at any rate, you'll have two hours to compose your differences. Père Francois, bring the clock. Very well, messiah. Thank you. Place it there. This, monsieur de Beaulieu, is another of my little contrivances and one that is hardly less ingenious than my daughter. Messiah, your accomplishments are of no interest to me whatsoever. Oh, I think you'll find this one most interesting. You will notice that the upper container is filled with water. In exactly two hours, all of the water will have dripped into the lower vessel. And at that time, I shall return. Remove the plug, Père Francois. Clever, isn't it? Well, Venus is so rarely appreciated. And now I'm quite sure you'd sooner carry on your interview without an audience. You'd... You'd never met my uncle before? He didn't arrange this with you. I'd never laid eyes on him. And certainly nothing was arranged with me else I wouldn't be here. You're as much an unfortunate victim as myself. But you, at least, must be more aware of the circumstances. I can understand none of this. It's not an easy thing for a girl to tell. Whatever you may think of me now, I fear you shall think the worst when I've finished. Words are but words. But your manner encourages respect. Thank you, monsieur. I've lived all my life with my uncle. And I've not been happy. Three months ago, a young captain of the guard began to stand near me in the church. Oh, you must understand. I gave him no encouragement to do so. Well, quite so, I understand. He was handsome, of course. As a matter of fact, very. After a while, he began to pass me notes. He found me pleasing, wanted to meet me, and seemed most interested in me for some reason. I can believe that. This morning, he passed me a note urging me to leave the outer door open tonight so that he could speak a few words with me on the stairs. Oh, this is most difficult for me to tell, monsieur. I'm sure he meant no harm. I've no idea how my uncle came to suspect. Sometimes his shrewdness becomes almost diabolic. After church, he took that note from my hand, read it, gave it back to me. I've been kept in my room all day, knowing nothing of what he might be planning. So that's it. By pure accident, I've blundered into a trap set for someone else. Had my uncle brought the captain himself, the thing still would have been confusing. How should I know that he may not have been trifling with me all along? But to be forced into a situation with you, a perfect stranger. Your regard for me is quite clear, mademoiselle. I regret appearing as a disappointment to you. I believe you said he was very handsome. That we're all. There's more?  But it's so... I'm not really no use. Well, please understand me. I'm not urging you in any way. Urging, monsieur? I'm accustomed to meeting young ladies upon occasion who are quite ready to accept me as something beside a convenient substitute for some handsome captain of the guard. I've no doubt of it, monsieur. In fact, a mistake and impression you seem to have. I'm well aware that you're doing no urging. And were you to do so, I should neither listen to nor give it any consideration whatsoever. It's well that we both understand one another. Quite so. And that being the case, mademoiselle de Malfoy, I wonder if you'll be good enough to conduct me to your uncle. With the greatest of pleasure, monsieur. I've no doubt but what this little matter can be settled very quickly. And with as much honor as possible to everybody concerned. The full two hours weren't necessary. Already, harmonious accord rises triumphantly. On the contrary, sir de Malfoy. Your assumption is entirely false.  Well, Pierre Francois, there's nothing to it. We'll simply have to wait a while longer. As you say, monsieur. I fear it may be much longer than you think. In fact, forever. That's a very long time indeed. And you, my dear niece, what are your sentiments in the matter? I will not marry this man. Do what you may, uncle. I will not marry him. Right back where we started. Can it be that our young friend is lacking in perception, Pierre Francois? It is possible, monsieur. I'm not at any rate lacking in a sense of honorable conduct. Dragged in here against my will, I've addressed your niece in the manner of a gentleman. I found her charming. Lovely. Delightful. But now I have the honor of declining your offer of her hand. Let that end the matter. Oh, it's not as simple as that. Take a look from my window then, and tell me what you see on the wall beneath it. What do you mean? See for yourself. Whatever it is can have no bearing on the matter. There's an iron ring set in the wall. Quite so, and a fasten to the ring? A rope. Right. So we have two elements, and to complete our little diagram we need a third one. That element is, at the moment, firmly attached to your body. I'm referring, sir, to your neck. Uncle, no. And may I inquire the purpose of the dogs there in the courtyard below? Are they also a part of your devilish plans? My dear young man, a body doesn't hang in ropes forever, you know. You maniac. Even murder doesn't stop you. Oh, that's such a nasty word. Let us confine ourselves to the bald facts. At the end of your two hours, you will prepare yourself either to marry my niece or to kick out your life while you swing at the end of that rope. There's no other alternative. I think there's one. Between gentlemen at any rate. Arm yourself, sir.  You'll think for a moment that if I regarded your sword as a threat, you'd still be wearing it. Pierre Francois, will you open that door to the passage, please? Of course, messiah. I'll be most happy to. Gentlemen, show this rash young buck the color of your steel. Whether he likes to admit it or not, Monsieur de Beaulieu, one day a man grows too old to fight his own battles and must hire others to do it for him. Close the door, Pierre Francois. Then you'll not fight? Do I seem a fool? There'll be no fighting and no haughty refusal to marry my niece. You found her charming, well and good. But I'll tell you this. Worse, she is common as the Paris road. More hideous to the gargoyle over my door. You'd not spurn the hand of a maltoir and ever live to tell of it. Alive and married you'll be or dead and hanging from that window and soon after food for the dogs. It's one or the other. Make up your mind. Please, Monsieur de Beaulieu, why do you not sit down? Your concern is most gratifying, mademoiselle. Since I have such a short time to live, I doubt that I'll grow very tired. If the time be short, then why do we waste it in formal speeches? As you will. Listen to him. Drip, drip, drip. That devilish clock, like an artery opened and life's blood itself tripping away. I've sat here and thought and thought until my whole mind's in a great whirl. Please, you really shouldn't trouble yourself so much. I can't bear to have you sling for my sake. Monsieur de Beaulieu, I will marry you, gladly. You must think then that I stand very much in fear of death. Oh, no, no. I had reason to see that you're no coward. I've asked for no pity if a thing has to be. Then that's the end of it. Oh, sir, you misunderstood me. The great nobility with which you face my uncle should have removed all question about your bravery had such doubts existed. That is most kind of you to say so. Not of course that anyone could raise such questions once they'd seen you. Death's another incident. That's all. Oh, but life's a better one. You'll agree then. I'm afraid you underrate the difficulty. What your generosity offers me, my pride prevents accepting. In this moment of noble feeling toward me, aren't you forgetting what you already owed someone else? Monsieur, he never really mattered. Mademoiselle, my very life's the forfeit here. One I'll pay gladly if it be of service to a lady, but to tell me it's for something that never really mattered. Please, don't, don't be so cruel. Cruel, you forget. I'm the one who's going to die, not you. I've not forgotten, Monsieur. Yes. You'll enjoy tomorrow's sun like any other days. And tomorrow night, perhaps you'll see him again. And of course, I'll be forgotten. Oh, no, never. But it's all a man can expect when he's born into the world, death at last, and some piece of ironic misfortune. Oh, don't say those things. I can't bear it. Oh, if I've said anything to wound you, I'm sorry. It was for your own sake, not mine. It's a bitter thing, my dear, to see you in such distress that giving my life itself for you can't help it. I'm sorry. I'll try to be braver. Is there no way at all in which I can serve you, either now or afterwards? Only by letting me think of you as a friend for the brief time that's left to us. By forgetting for the moment that I'm an awkward intruder thrown here by circumstance. That's all. And afterwards? What does it matter the closer you come to it, the clearer you see that death's no more than a... a dark and dusty corner where a man climbs into his tomb and shuts the door after him. I've only a few friends now. And once I'm dead, I've no doubt that I'll have none. You forget to blanch the maltware. You're very sweet. Any young man in France would be glad to trade places with me and die for you. You value the small service I do you far beyond its worth. I'll not have you thinking so meanly of yourself. Look at me. Would you say that I am beautiful? I think the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Oh, I'm glad of that. Tell me, is there a man in France who can say he's been asked in marriage by a beautiful maiden, asked from her own lips and refused her to her face? Oh, no.  But any woman knows more of what's precious in love. Remember you asked me out of the pity of your heart, not full of love. Are you so sure of that? Must I bear my very soul like a merchant's showcase? You're very good. As good as you're beautiful. I'll not forget it for the time that's left of me. Very well. I too have a pride of my own. You'd turn back now from your word, I'd no more marry you than I would any stranger off the street. It's a small love that shies at a little pride dawns starting to break. Yes, my uncle and his men would come here any moment. What shall we say to him? All of my life I weep for you. And weep the more because it was you. If I'm wrong, it's a great price I'm paying for it. One I'd not pay if I didn't care for you so dearly. Careful, not you are being kind. It was in the moment your uncle brought me into you with a face to look at me, that's what I knew. Oh, strange, for it was then I felt it too.  Oh, you're not, I know it. Lasha, is it really true not something born of pity? I swear by all that's holy. I love you, Denny. Oh, my beloved, and I can tell you now that I love you too. Even after all you've heard. I can remember none of it. The captain's name. No matter. I love you. Oh, my darling. I love you more than my life, my soul. Lasha, my darling, I love you. I love you, Lasha. Well. Oh, God. Well, well, well. It's most gratifying to see this little matter settle in such a congenial fashion. Good morning, my dear nephew. I have nothing to say to you, sir.  Oh, that's most ungracious of you. No, no. But the very worst, I'm no more than a very wise old man, one who's lived a long time and seen a great many remarkable things. An old man who's learned all about such mysteries as the love of life and love. The Sire de Maltois' door by Robert Louis Stevenson was adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield and produced and directed by William M. Robeson with Elliot Lewis as Denny, Peggy Weber as Blanche, and Bill as the Sire de Maltois. The special musical score was conceived and conducted by Sy Fewer. Escape is presented by the Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations each week at this time. Next week we invite you to escape to Egypt of 3,500 years ago with Arthur Conan Doyle's fascinating tale of the Ring of Toth. And so good night until next week at this time, when again it will be time to escape. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.