The real science behind Project Hail Mary

Yes, there is some real science behind 📚_Project Hail Mary_. It’s an enjoyable and successful sci-fi novel and film, but the science fiction is frankly quite a bit more fiction than science. It would hardly give away the plot of Project Hail Mary to mention that it has a lot to do with the microbial contamination of experimental research. I mean, that’s what the story is about – in the same way Andy Weir’s previous novel, The Martian, was all about potato farming. If this floats your spaceship (microbes I mean, not potatoes), you might enjoy a fascinating article about the real science of microbial contamination in experimental contexts. Apparently there’s a bacteriophage called Φ80 and it’s running amok. How Φ80 infiltrates research labs. Scary stuff! Perhaps someone will turn it into a movie. I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now. And if you found this article interesting you might like to sign up to the Writing Slowly…