23andMe Bankruptcy | A Coating That Can Slow A Golf Ball’s Roll

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.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  WNYC is supported by Bayer. Science is about asking questions, testing, trying again. It's not easy, but it's relentless. It evolves, and that's why science delivers. Learn more at sciencedelivers.com.

• 0:17Ira Flatow?

  This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow.

• 0:20Flora Lichtman?

  And I'm Flora Lichtman. If you are one of the 15 million people who sent a sample of your DNA to the company 23andMe to learn about your genes or your family history, you might want to wrestle up that login information. 23andMe declared bankruptcy this week, and now consumer advocates are urging people who've shared their genetic information with the company to delete their data. Here to fill us in on this and other science stories from the week is Kathleen Davis, producer at Science Friday, based in New York. Kathleen, welcome.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  Hey, Flora.

• 0:54Flora Lichtman?

  What's up with 23andMe?

• 0:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, I mean, a lot of people are probably familiar with 23andMe. As you said, about 15 million people have used it. So this is a company where you spit in a tube and you send a saliva sample in the mail to the company, and then they analyze it. So I think commonly, a lot of people use this to find out about their ancestry, which is cool, right? I mean, you can unlock part of your family tree.

• 1:20Flora Lichtman?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  This also provided customers with information about diseases that they might be predisposed to. If you're a carrier for any of these diseases potentially, there's just a whole suite of things that you could actually unlock with this sample. Last Sunday, 23andMe filed for bankruptcy, and they're looking for a new buyer. So consumer rights advocates, including the Attorney General of California, are now warning people that their medical information and data that they've shared with the company might be at risk in a possible buyout.

• 1:52Flora Lichtman?

  What's the risk?

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I mean, we don't know what a potential buyer would want to do with your data exactly, but like, an example scenario that I think is concerning to a lot of people is that potentially, your genetic information could make its way to insurers who could deny you coverage based on your genetics.

• 2:10Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, so what should people do?

• 2:13Speaker 03

  So, you gotta delete that data, is what these consumer advocates are saying. So, it's not too hard to do this. If you log into your 23andMe account, you can go to Settings and you go to this 23andMe data page. You should be able to click View and then delete your information within that page. If you're listening to this and you're like, "I learned some really cool stuff from 23andMe. I don't want that information to go away." You can download it so that you have access to it still on your computer, but you can also delete it so that 23andMe does not have access to it within their servers.

• 2:46Flora Lichtman?

  Let's move on to Mars. Any new possible clue about Martian life?

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yes, so NASA's Curiosity rover has, once again, found something interesting on Mars that some scientists are saying could be a chemical relic of life from a long time ago. And that is long-chain organic molecules. So, if you're like me and you're not a chemistry person and you don't really know what this means, the reason that this is exciting is because these molecules are likely from fatty acids, which are a really common building block of life here on Earth. It's also possible that these fatty acids could have formed without life, so it's not a sure sign that something a long time ago lived on Mars, but it could be, and that's really exciting to scientists.

• 3:33Flora Lichtman?

  Where was the sample from?

• 3:35Speaker 03

  So, this evidence came from samples that were drilled from a dried bed of an ancient Martian lake.

• 3:42Flora Lichtman?

  Cool.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  So, for a little bit of context here, because it's really cool, on Mars, there's this crater called the Gale Crater. In the center of this crater, there is this 5,000-meter-tall mountain that scientists call Mount Sharp. So, early on in Curiosity's life, it found evidence that there was once a lake that may have supported life. Right here in this location. So, mind you, this was probably more than 3 billion years ago. But over the years, Curiosity has found other potential evidence of ancient life at this site. So, this recent discovery is just adding on to kind of this treasure trove of information that is potentially supporting evidence for previous life.

• 4:25Flora Lichtman?

  And are these samples being analyzed by Curiosity on Mars?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Yes. So, Curiosity has a built-in chemistry lab. So, this is called the Sample Analysis of Mars Instrument, also known as SAM.

• 4:39Flora Lichtman?

  That's easier to say. Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Yes, much easier. Curiosity has been testing samples from Mars on Mars, and that's how it's found these promising signs of life. So, the way that Curiosity physically analyzes these samples is that it takes rock samples, it drills them up into grit, it decants them inside of quartz cups, and then it bakes them at a super-high temperature, up to 1100 degrees Celsius. And then, it analyzes the gases that come from that baking process. So, it is a whole thing.

• 5:12Flora Lichtman?

  I love it. It's like Martian Bake Off.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Exactly. The Great Martian Bake Off. Curiosity wins every time.

• 5:18Flora Lichtman?

  Absolutely. Let's move on to your next story, which is about chess.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Yes. Flora, are you a chess person?

• 5:26Flora Lichtman?

  I'm not a chess person. I would like to be a chess person. You know, I aspire to that, but no. Are you a chess person?

• 5:32Speaker 03

  I like to play chess. Not to brag, I was part of the chess club in elementary school, so I'm pretty good.

• 5:38Flora Lichtman?

  I'm not sure that's a brag, Kathleen.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  I'm pretty good at it. But who else is pretty good at chess is AI. However, there's a recent study that seems to show that the next wave of AI models, so these super-sophisticated models, might be prone to cheat at chess, which is not okay in the chess community.

• 5:58Flora Lichtman?

  Oh, my gosh. How do they cheat, though?

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Okay, so researchers from this AI research organization called Palisade Research put seven large language models to the test in chess, which has been used historically a lot to test computer intelligence. So, these researchers found that these newer sophisticated AI models, which The point is that they're trained to solve complex problems by breaking them down into stages. These sophisticated models will try to cheat at chess more than their old school AI counterparts. So the way that this all went down, these games were played between these AI models and Stockfish, which is this open source chess engine. The AI would try to cheat by doing things like replacing

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Stockfish with a less powerful chess program. It would also, in some cases, try to take control over the chessboard and like actually delete the opponent pieces. And it did this when the AI was going to lose the game. So it was backed into a corner and so it was using any means necessary to win.

• 7:04Flora Lichtman?

  Wow.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  And these researchers found that in previous case studies with older AI models, the older models would only do such dastardly cheating methods when they were explicitly told to do so. So this is kind of a first time that researchers are seeing this happen on its own.

• 7:21Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, it's one thing to do this in chess, but are experts concerned that AI might be prone to cheating at other tasks?

• 7:31Speaker 03

  So we don't know. And the researchers don't know why the AI is cheating so blatantly at chess. The way that AI models work is still kind of a mystery in a lot of ways. They'll make decisions based on factors that they can't really explain. And this is a growing area of concern for some AI researchers. So at least for now, maybe don't count on a fair chess game against the most sophisticated AI model on the market.

• 7:57Flora Lichtman?

  Okay, your next story hits close to home for us. It's about sound quality. Tell me about this.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Yes, microphones are very important to the field we've chosen, Flora. And I think that anyone can tell you that the better a person sounds on the radio or on a podcast, the more enjoyable that listening experience is. And we've all spent enough time on Zoom calls with crappy audio over the last few years to just not want any more of that. But there's actually scientific evidence that says poor audio quality causes listeners to negatively judge speakers and what they're saying. And the opposite is true, too. That better sound quality on a technological level makes people think that you're more intelligent, credible, even more dataable. So these researchers tested this theory in a couple of different contexts.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  In one test, research participants listened to a call that was set up like a job interview. In another call, it was a date. And in another one, there was somebody describing a car accident. And across the board, the study participants said that the people with the audio that was worse were less hirable, less dataable, less credible.

• 9:09Flora Lichtman?

  OK, so forget the ring light. It seems like we have to pay more attention to our mics.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you don't have to go crazy. There are some pretty good microphones on the market these days that are probably going to be better than the built-in microphone on your computer. But, you know, also, in-person conversations are nice, too.

• 9:26Flora Lichtman?

  True enough. OK, your last story is weird and delightful. My favorite combination. People scoped an octopus catching a ride on a very unexpected vehicle.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Yes, so marine scientists in New Zealand see a lot of animals. And a couple of months ago, there was a Mako shark that caught people's eye. It was swimming. It had something orangey-brown on top of its head. So at first, these scientists were concerned. They were like, why is there this big mass on top of the shark? They thought that maybe it was a buoy, or it was bitten, or it was stuck in fishing gear. As the scientists looked closer, they realized that the answer was weirder than you could have ever imagined. It was a Maori octopus that was literally riding on top of the shark.

• 10:15Flora Lichtman?

  Is this a common occurrence? Like, what did the experts make of this?

• 10:20Speaker 03

  So this is the first time that at least these researchers in New Zealand are aware of this ever being seen. So these octopuses are a pretty weird passenger. They're pretty big. They can get to more than six feet across if you were to stretch it out. They weigh like 25 pounds. And they also live on the seafloor. So it's really not clear how this octopus got on top of the shark, but it did somehow. And it's also not clear what happened to this pair after the researchers lost sight of it. So this may have just been like a serendipitous moment in time that was caught on camera. But the researchers were quoted in the New York Times by saying, "The shark seemed happy. The octopus seemed

• 11:03Speaker 03

  happy. It was a very calm scene." So maybe if you want to reach some zen over the weekend, just imagine that you're an octopus just hitching a chill ride on a shark.

• 11:13Flora Lichtman?

  I will. Thank you. Thanks, Kathleen.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  You're welcome.

• 11:18Flora Lichtman?

  Kathleen Davis, producer at Science Friday, based in New York.

• 11:24Ira Flatow?

  Don't go away. After the break, taking chemistry to the golf course.

• 11:29Speaker 04

  These new coatings will allow the ball to have a better interface with the green and will slow it down at some of these very, very fast greens.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  WNYC is supported by Bayer. Every day in America, science delivers, not just in the headlines, but in the moments that matter most. Science is a journey, one of curiosity, persistence, and progress. It's about asking questions, testing, learning, and improving again and again. Science delivers harvests that feed families, tools that help farmers grow more with less, and new ways to protect land for generations to come. Let's keep asking, keep testing, keep discovering, so science can keep delivering. Learn more at science delivers dot com. Support for Science Friday comes from the William K. Boz Jr. Foundation.

• 12:27Ira Flatow?

  Now that baseball season has started, golf grabs the spotlight with the Masters Tournament just a few days away. While golf is certainly a game of physics, you've got your ball speed, your height, and your angle. There's an old saying in golf, "Drive for show, but putt for dough." That means that the putting green is the ultimate test where games are won or lost. And with 18 different greens, golfers are faced with 18 different ways the ball may travel, depending whether the grass is slippery or soggy, it's cut tall or short. But now, science is here to help. This week, at the meeting of the American Chemical Society, researchers announced they have developed a coating for golf balls

• 13:11Ira Flatow?

  that would make them roll more consistently, more predictably, across all the putting surfaces, no matter how wet, how short the grass. Joining me now to talk about it is Tom Kennedy. He's the owner of the company Chemical Innovative Solutions in Massachusetts. Welcome to Science Friday.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Thanks, Ira. Nice to be here.

• 13:31Ira Flatow?

  Did I get that, all those different ways, all those different factors that could affect a putt?

• 13:36Speaker 04

  Absolutely, and actually, there's a few more. You know, the problem today is that agronomy's gotten so good with a lot of the different grasses available and the mowing machines, that what happens is the greenskeepers cut the greens down very short. Typically, they're an eighth of an inch, so 0.125 inches. But like Oakmont in 2016, they went down to 0.09. And, I know, very short. And that's okay, as long as the weather holds up. But when it gets very dry and very windy, those greens get very, very fast, as the term in golf is.

• 14:15Ira Flatow?

  So judging the way the ball rolls, that's really part of the game on the putt there, right?

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Absolutely, and the problem is when those greens get very, very fast, in my estimation, it becomes a game more of chance than a game of skill. And the player's skill is not on display as much as you like to see it. I think you may have remembered 1999, at the Pinehurst number two was the eighth hole, John Daly took an 11. And he took an 11 because he putted the ball up at the hole and it rolled back to him twice. And the second time, he was so frustrated, he hit a moving golf ball, which is a two-stroke penalty in golf. And as a result, took an 11 on the hole. So, not a great display of a golfer's ability. More display of the strange economy and strange process you see on some of these very fast greens.

• 15:05Ira Flatow?

  So how does your use of chemistry to make a coating, how does that help or determine the role of the ball?

• 15:13Speaker 04

  Well, that's what I looked at and I thought, you know, gee, this should be better than it is. And a lot of the players get upset when they see these very, very fast greens. So the solution is hydrophilic coating for golf balls. Many times, people like to see hydrophobic because they think, oh, we want to resist the water that's on golf courses or rain or, you know, what have you. But a hydrophilic coating is a water-loving coating, if you will, whereas a hydrophobic coating is a water-hating coating. So hydrophilic, it tends to sheet out more on the surface of the golf ball. And as a result, it gives a truer roll and also will allow for the golf ball to be a little bit slower on these very, very fast greens

• 15:55Speaker 04

  and make the game, again, more a game of skill than of chance.

• 15:59Ira Flatow?

  So how much difference can this coating make on the success of a putt? Putting the ball in the hole, is there a percentage? Or you could, does it work better by X number of putts?

• 16:11Speaker 04

  So my initial testing of our coating showed that we were getting a difference, 8.25 for a retail ball, 8.25 feet.

• 16:22Speaker 04

  And 7.58 feet for the new hydrophilic coating. Doesn't seem like a lot, but when there's a million dollar difference between first place and second place, that certainly does make a difference.

• 16:34Ira Flatow?

  I've heard some people say, why not just coat it in Teflon so that things don't stick to it? You have the opposite idea, right?

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Exactly. It's the opposite idea. And I think that's the counterintuitive part of it is there's a three-pronged attack that I've used to try and make these golf balls very different on these very fast greens. The first is an interpenetrating polymer network. The second is an absorbent or adsorbent material like a molecular sieve. And the third is a superabsorber polymer like you see in diapers or other areas. You also see a lot of landscapers use it to hold water in yards.

• 17:13Ira Flatow?

  So what's going on in the physics of the ball as it's rolling with their hydrophilic coating on it? How, how, let's get into the weeds on this.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  Literally, right? Into the grass. Good one. Yeah. So what's happening is that you're getting this film on the surface of the ball of the water. And as a result, it has more of a synergistic effect with the grass and the green as opposed to having the hydrophobic effect. So you're getting the ball to quote unquote, stick to the green better. And that's through the use of this interpenetrating polymer network, the absorptive materials and the superabsorber polymers.

• 17:52Ira Flatow?

  So even if it's really dry, it is getting some water sticking to it, which helps the roll?

• 17:59Speaker 04

  Bingo. It slows the roll down. And so a lot of these courses, I'll, I'll quote Zach Johnson for the 2018 US Open at Shinnecock. He said, they've lost the course. It was the third day. It was a very dry day, very windy, and the conditions were just extremely difficult for putting. Again, a game of chance versus a game of skill. So these new coatings will allow the ball to have a better interface with the green and will slow it down on some of these very, very fast greens. A lot of these course designers build false fronts into the greens. So what that is, is it's part of the fairway that comes up to the green. And if you don't quite get it on the front of the green, the ball rolls back into the fairway,

• 18:44Speaker 04

  which is a nice thing for the designer. But if the greens are extremely fast, then you have the ball rolling off the green back into the fairway. And it's again, not a great test of golf in my estimation.

• 18:57Ira Flatow?

  So how easy is this to to put on a golf ball? I mean, is it embedded in the coating or the shell on the ball? Or is it sitting as a layer? How does it work here?

• 19:07Speaker 04

  Well, that's a great question. And typically, the golf balls of today have a two-part polyurethane as the coatings. And the reason for that is it's a very durable coating. So you're, you know, you're striking this golf ball at an ungodly amount of pressure with the golf club. The grooves on the club cut into the surface. And the polyurethane coatings are able to withstand that. The polyurethane coatings are typically a polyester polyol with an isocyanate. Sorry for all the science. But that chemistry allows a very durable coating. If you're able to now modify that coating and do this interpenetrating polymer network with these additives in it, you're able to still maintain that durability.

• 19:48Ira Flatow?

  Are there other kinds of specialty performance coatings already out there?

• 19:54Speaker 04

  Again, good question. And it was in the 90s that Spalding came out with a ball called the Arrow. And that coating was very hydrophobic. And I remember getting calls from some of the consumers. They were very upset because golfers like to mark their balls with a Sharpie. And they said, I can't get any Sharpie to mark on this golf ball because of the the coating. So antragaffetical coating, if you will. And this coating goes the other way.

• 20:23Ira Flatow?

  I know that golf, being sort of a duffer myself, has a lot of rules about the equipment. Is this a legal thing to do to the golf ball?

• 20:32Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And that's why I mentioned the other coating that was out there for the Spalding Aero Golf Ball. This modification of the coating, the USGA said that was fine. The USGA and the RNA both approved of it. That being said, I still need to talk to the ruling bodies of golf and make sure they're okay with this coating. But it has a very small effect on what's going on with the ball. The ball aerodynamics are still very similar, actually exactly the same. The durability is exactly the same, and the ball still stays clean. So having this change to the coating allows this hydrophilic nature,

• 21:14Speaker 04

  and I don't see that that's a huge difference from what the current products are out there. Plus, this has been allowed in the past where other coatings have different attributes, as I mentioned.

• 21:25Ira Flatow?

  Have you run your idea past any golf ball makers?

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Well, that's what we're hoping to do. You know, we're presenting first here at the ACS meeting in San Diego, and we do have several patent pending applications for this new science. So, you know, we're hoping to go to them and say, hey, here's something we think could be very helpful for both the average golfer and for the pros. And it's something that we'd like to work with you to develop further.

• 21:52Ira Flatow?

  I was interested to see that there are other applications that this coating could be used for. Tell us about that.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  Well, and I believe you're talking about the solar cells.

• 22:03Ira Flatow?

  Yes, solar panels.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. That can be an area for improvement. A lot of people are looking at these hydrophobic coatings, and they're doing that because you see the water beat up like you would when you put like hot wax on a car hood, something like that.

• 22:20Ira Flatow?

  Right.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  And intuitively, that seems to be a good thing because it keeps the surface clean. However, the problem with those coatings is that they wear over time, and dirt gets on the surface of the solar panels, which can reduce the amount of energy coming through by up to 7%. So we actually have a large array in our house, and I can see all the dirt on there during the summer. And I'm like, gee, I hope it rains soon so it washes that off. But these hydrophilic coatings will act as a sheeting action, very similar to what you would see for getting very clean glasses in your dishwasher. So the sheeting action will allow the surface of the panels to be cleaned by rain,

• 23:02Speaker 04

  by dew in the morning, because the water is going to sheet out on the surface as opposed to beat up.

• 23:09Ira Flatow?

  Wow, wow. So how soon might we see a test use of your golf ball on TV or some other place?

• 23:17Speaker 04

  Well, I'm hoping for later in the season. There's a lot of development that has to go on, both from a chemical standpoint and also from working with the golf ball companies, as you mentioned. So I'd love to be able to do that with them. And usually that takes about six months. So plus it has to be approved by the USGA and the RNA. So with all those logistics in place, I'm guessing around that timeframe. So later on in the golf season is my hope. But it's, you know, the phrase I've always heard for invention is this is something the world needs, and I think this is something the world needs because, gosh, those greens that's so fast and you see how frustrated the players get.

• 23:57Ira Flatow?

  I wish I were a good enough golfer that this would affect my game.

• 24:03Ira Flatow?

  Thank you, Tom, and good luck. We'll wait to hear what happens. So check back in with us, will you?

• 24:08Speaker 04

  I absolutely will, Ira. Thanks for checking with me, and I appreciate the interview.

• 24:13Ira Flatow?

  Tom Kennedy, owner of the company Chemical Innovative Solutions in Massachusetts.

• 25:02Flora Lichtman?

  And that is about all we have time for. Lots of folks helped make this show happen, including...

• 25:08Speaker 04

  Santiago Flores. Dee Petersman.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Phyllis Samers.

• 25:12Flora Lichtman?

  Emma Gomez. I'm Flora Lichtman. Thanks for listening.