23andMe Bankruptcy | A Coating That Can Slow A Golf Ball’s Roll
03/28/25 • 24 min
4 Listeners
The company has genetic data of 15 million people, which could be shared with a future buyer. Here’s how to delete it. Plus, an experimental coating could make golf balls roll more reliably on greens with different conditions.
After 23andMe Bankruptcy, Customers Urged To Delete Their Data
If you’re one of roughly 15 million people who used 23andMe to unlock information from their DNA, consumer advocates have a message for you: Delete your data. On Sunday, the company, which has customers send saliva samples for DNA analysis, filed for bankruptcy. While many customers submitted their saliva for the purpose of ancestral analysis, 85% of customers also consent to their data used for genetic disease research.
As the company searches for a buyer, consumer advocates, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, have urged customers to delete their data from 23andMe’s website. 23andMe and other genetic testing companies are not subject to HIPAA, meaning health and medical records kept by 23andMe could be shared with a future buyer.
Producer Kathleen Davis joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss this and other top science stories of the week.
Chemists Make A Coating That Can Slow A Golf Ball’s Roll
With spring here, the days are getting warmer and longer, meaning conditions are perfect for a trip to the golf course. And while golf is certainly a game of physics—force, angles, parabolas—this week researchers presented work showing that chemistry could play an important role on the golf course as well. Speaking at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, researchers described a high performance coating that could be incorporated into the polyurethane shell of a golf ball.
The hydrophilic (water-loving) coating would make tiny bits of water stick to the surface of the golf ball and sheet off, modifying the way the ball interacts with the grass of the green. That interaction, says Tom Kennedy, owner of Chemical Innovative Solutions Inc., would lead to the ball rolling more slowly and reliably, especially on “fast,” closely-cut greens in dry and windy conditions.
Kennedy joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the technology, and how hydrophilic coatings could find a home in other applications, including solar cells.
Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
The company has genetic data of 15 million people, which could be shared with a future buyer. Here’s how to delete it. Plus, an experimental coating could make golf balls roll more reliably on greens with different conditions.
After 23andMe Bankruptcy, Customers Urged To Delete Their Data
If you’re one of roughly 15 million people who used 23andMe to unlock information from their DNA, consumer advocates have a message for you: Delete your data. On Sunday, the company, which has customers send saliva samples for DNA analysis, filed for bankruptcy. While many customers submitted their saliva for the purpose of ancestral analysis, 85% of customers also consent to their data used for genetic disease research.
As the company searches for a buyer, consumer advocates, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, have urged customers to delete their data from 23andMe’s website. 23andMe and other genetic testing companies are not subject to HIPAA, meaning health and medical records kept by 23andMe could be shared with a future buyer.
Producer Kathleen Davis joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss this and other top science stories of the week.
Chemists Make A Coating That Can Slow A Golf Ball’s Roll
With spring here, the days are getting warmer and longer, meaning conditions are perfect for a trip to the golf course. And while golf is certainly a game of physics—force, angles, parabolas—this week researchers presented work showing that chemistry could play an important role on the golf course as well. Speaking at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, researchers described a high performance coating that could be incorporated into the polyurethane shell of a golf ball.
The hydrophilic (water-loving) coating would make tiny bits of water stick to the surface of the golf ball and sheet off, modifying the way the ball interacts with the grass of the green. That interaction, says Tom Kennedy, owner of Chemical Innovative Solutions Inc., would lead to the ball rolling more slowly and reliably, especially on “fast,” closely-cut greens in dry and windy conditions.
Kennedy joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the technology, and how hydrophilic coatings could find a home in other applications, including solar cells.
Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
Previous Episode
AI Word Choice | When Dwarf Lemurs Hibernate, Their Chromosomes Do Something Odd
Certain words are overrepresented in text written by AI language models. A study investigates why such patterns develop. Also, the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, typically shorten as an organism ages. But when some fat-tail dwarf lemurs hibernate, they lengthen.
‘Delving’ Into The ‘Realm’ Of AI Word Choice
Several years ago, some eagle-eyed readers of scientific papers noticed an unusual trend—an increase in the number of abstracts using certain words. The terms, including “delve,” “realm,” “evolving landscape,” and more, were suddenly appearing more often than they used to.
Researchers analyzed the abstracts and compared them to abstracts written just a few years earlier, before the widespread availability of artificial intelligence large language model chatbots. They came to the conclusion that abstracts written by AI were more likely to use words from a list of around 20 favorites than regular human speech. The question was, why? If the models were trained on conventional writing, how did a preference for words such as “delve” creep in?
Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Tom Juzek and Dr. Zina Ward of Florida State University, who set out to try to understand the origins of some of AI’s favorite words.
When Dwarf Lemurs Hibernate, Their Chromosomes Do Something Odd
The fat-tail dwarf lemur is one of the only primates that hibernate for the winter. A new study published in the journal Biology Letters takes a closer look at what’s going on inside lemur cells when they are in this extended phase of suspended animation. It turns out that their telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes, actually grow longer when the dwarf lemurs hibernate. Typically telomeres shorten as we age, as cells continuously divide. So, what exactly does this finding mean for lemurs and other primates, like humans?
Host Flora Lichtman talks with the co-authors of this study, Dr. Marina Blanco and Dr. Lydia Greene, research scientists at Duke University.
Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
Next Episode
Engineering Lessons One Year After The Baltimore Bridge Collapse
Engineers take an in-depth look at why the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed and how to prevent future tragedies.
In the early morning of March 26, 2024, the container ship Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Within 30 seconds, the bridge collapsed into the river below. Six construction workers lost their lives.
On the one-year anniversary of the accident, we talk about what went wrong, and how to improve the safety of our nation’s bridges and prevent another tragic crash.
Host Ira Flatow is joined by Dr. Abi Aghayere, professor of civil engineering at Drexel University; and Dr. Thomas McKenney, associate professor of engineering practice in the naval architecture and marine engineering department at the University of Michigan.
Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
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