Season 8 Episode 3: Project Hail Mary Science and Swedish Cat Laws

Think space is fast? Try outrunning time. We kick off with a clear-eyed breakdown of Project Hail Mary’s core science.

Using the Parker Solar Probe as our real-world speed limit, we map the math of interstellar distances to compare to the ability for Ryan Gosling to get to Tau Ceti in Project Hail Mary.

Then we turn to biology’s unforgiving rules. Could a years-long medically induced coma carry a crew through deep space? We explain how coma differs from sleep, why weeks mark a dangerous threshold, and the cascade of complications ICU teams fight daily—muscle wasting, clots, pneumonia, pressure injuries, and dysregulated hormones. We sketch what a future-ready, autonomous critical-care system would actually need to stabilize a human body for years, and why today’s medicine isn’t there yet.

Our pet science segment shifts from galaxies to living rooms, dissecting a viral claim about Sweden “banning” leaving cats home alone. We clarify the Swedish Animal Welfare Act, the twice-daily human check-in guideline for cats, and why cameras don’t count. You’ll hear how these rules protect animal welfare without criminalizing a normal workday, and why enforcement stories online deserve a healthy fact-check. It’s the same habit we apply to sci-fi: verify the source, understand the standard, and do right by the beings who rely on us.

If you enjoy smart science, grounded skepticism, and practical takeaways—from relativistic travel to responsible pet care—follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your notes help more curious minds find us.

Transcript

Welcome And Teaser Reveal

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello, science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zakowski.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

And I'm Chris Zikkowski.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

We're the pet parents of Bunsen, Beaker, Bernoulli, and Ginger.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

The science animals on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right spot. So put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

This is the Science Podcast. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode three of season eight.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

This is gonna lead into a little bit of a spoiler alert, but I purchased tickets for something that is coming up as an early viewing. Let's just say you thought there was an opening weekend or an opening night, and I was able to secure tickets to something really exciting. And you said, How is that possible? They don't even exist. And I said, I don't know. I have tickets in my digital Apple wallet. Maybe we'll go and they'll say, just kidding, but I don't think so. I think we've got some really good seats.

Project Hail Mary Set Up

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, I'm very excited about that. And that leads into the main stories this week on the show. We're going to be talking about some of the science behind Project Hail Mary. Um, I may or may not have mentioned the book I read. I got the book. When did I get the book? During the summer. And that book was probably in my top five books I've ever read in my entire life. And then I found out they were making a movie about it. Now, we're not going to have any spoilers because you haven't read the book and you want to remain spoiler-free for the movie. But in the trailers, if you've seen the trailers, they allude to a couple big things, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. If the science is feasible, with Project Hail Mary. And in Pet Science, we're going to break down a viral post about cats in Sweden. Now, I wrote about this on our Substack, Chris, actually, and I've got some funny things to tell you about it. A post went mega viral and was shared over and over again by I think like content scrapers. So, like some accounts on the internet with maybe not the best intentions that take other people's content. Anyways, we got sent this like 60 times. We got tagged in it 60 times on social media, and I looked into it, and the long and short of it is the post claims that is it illegal to leave your cat home alone in Sweden. We never leave our pets home alone without somebody checking in on them. We'll maybe talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

That sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

All right, let's get to the show. There's no time lake.

Fastest Real Spacecraft Explained

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Science time.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

This week in Science News, we are gonna look at two of the big science fiction-y points of Project Hail Mary and break down if they are plausible or realistic. And we're not gonna get into too many spoilers because if you've seen the trailer, they say in the trailer what's going on, and we're gonna break down those two things. There's lots of other stuff we could talk about. But Chris, you haven't read the book, so you want to maintain it somewhat spoiler-free.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

I do, and you just love this book. You cannot say enough wonderful things about it. You have read the book, not only that, you have listened to the audiobook several times. Yes, and you just love it so much. And I enjoy your passion for the things that you love. So I'm I'm really excited to talk about this with you. And we've listened to other podcasts or other scientists talk about if you know TV shows or movies have realistic science, and which is the most realistic science movie that stays true to science. Can you do what they do in Star Wars, etc., etc.? So I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So Project Hail Mary is a book written by the excellent author Andy Weir. He, of course, wrote The Martian, which was a mega blockbuster starring Matt Damon. Project Hail Mary stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, the main character of the show. No.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

No, Ryan Gosling is Ken, and his job is Beach. What?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Oh my god, he was so good in the Barbie movie. So good. We're gonna do the patriarchy, so we did the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

That was a good movie. I'm glad we went to it. Me too. No, I've read the book, and Ryan Gosling is a perfect Ryland Grace for this movie. Now, we're not I'm not gonna give away any spoilers beyond what it says in the trailer. So the trailer opens and Grace, this guy wakes up in outer space, he is confused, and then it flashes back to Earth, and this lady is saying, the sun is dying. All of the suns around our sun is dying, except one, and we're gonna send a spaceship there to figure out why it's not dying. And that star that they reference is Tao Seti. So we're I'm not gonna get into any of the spoilers beyond that, because it's science fiction-y to send a spaceship across interstellar space to something like Tao Seti, which is many light years away.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Exactly. So I think what we need to break down is what is the fastest spacecraft that we have right now that we have been able to make with our own technology here on Earth. And that spacecraft is the Parker Solar Probe. And it was launched in 2018 by NASA, and it can go pretty quickly, 192 kilometers per second, which is much faster than the Highlander. It's 692,000 kilometers an hour, which is roughly 430,000 miles per hour. And that is the fastest human-made object ever.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

And I've talked before about the Parker probe after it launched. And on the podcast, I've actually done two stories. I don't think we talked about it together before you joined, Chris, but when I did the when I did the podcast solo, the Parker solar probe is this really cool, really cool, long-range probe. They launched at the sun and it's taking a bunch of readings about the heliosphere. It's got all of this really cool shielding at the front of it so it doesn't melt. Anyways, it's a really cool piece of technology.

Near‑Light Speeds And Time Dilation

SPEAKER_02 6:53

There's a reason why it can go so fast. Yeah. Because it repeatedly swings around the sun and it actually uses gravity assists from Venus to gain speed. I love that. And if we were looking that at putting that speed into perspective, if you were going Parker solar probe speed, you would go from Earth to Moon in about 33 minutes, about a TV episode of going from Earth to Mars, which the closest part of Mars would be about 23 days, so less than a month. And if you were going to go to Pluto, that would take you probably about six and a half years. But this is where you're it's going to take a long time to get to our nearest star. Our nearest star is Proxima Centauri. And unfortunately, that would take 6,700 years to get there.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I've shown kids these stats before. The Parker solar probe is cooking. Like it is going ridiculously fast. You could get across Canada in, I don't know, a minute or something like that. And but space is so incredibly big that even going that fast, it will never get. We would need something called generational ships to get to our nearest star. Generational ships are theoretical ships that have been proposed where you send a massive ship with a colony of people who will live and die and have babies, and those babies will grow up and live and die on the ship to get across interstellar space. So not a very nice trip for most of the people on it. Um and we'll just never get there with this kind of current technology. So, Chris, in the book and in the movie, something is discovered, and I'm not going to talk about it, but it's alluded to in the trailer, so I'm not spoiling much. But there's a method of going faster that is discovered in the book and the trailer that allows Ryland Grace and the ship, the Hail Mary, to cross interstellar space and get to Tao City, which is about 13 light years away from Earth. Meaning that if you went the speed of light, you would get to Tao City in about 13 years. And in the trailer, the Hail Mary ship reaches roughly 92% the speed of light. Chris, without reading the book, and we've done the calculations in our notes here, what does 92% the speed of light mean?

SPEAKER_02 9:30

If we're comparing speeds, currently the Parker Solar Probe, as I said, goes 102 kilometers per second, and the speed of light is 299,792 kilometers per second. So that means that the Hail Mary ship is going approximately 275,000 kilometers per second. 275,000 kilometers per second. That is about 1,400 times faster than the fastest real spacecraft. And that would allow the space travel to get to tau seti in about 13 years, going at 92% the speed of light.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

And another interesting thing happens when you start to go near the speed of light, time for you slows compared to everybody else. So while the Earth will experience the 12 to 13 years it takes you to get to Tau Ceti, you on the ship will experience far less time than that. And that's because of something called time dilation. The calculations are a little wonky, but it shrinks it to about four years. So if you could go 92% the speed of light, time on that ship would shrink to about four or five years for you. That's what you would experience. A long trip. Still a long trip.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

And Jason, you broke down the idea of an ship, but that wouldn't make sense to for a travel that's only four to five years. So what would we do instead?

Long-Term Coma Feasibility

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Okay, and again, I don't want to give away too many specifics, but this is shown in the trailer. Ryland Grace wakes up from a coma. And that is the hint as how they they get the astronauts and Grace from Earth to Tau City is they put them in a coma. So that's the second part of our breakdown. Is it possible to put somebody in a coma for years? Or would is that a very bad idea?

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Comas themselves are already a serious medical condition. It's not something to take lightly. A coma means that the brain of someone is deeply unconscious and not responsive. And there's some real related medical states like a vegetative state or being in a minimally conscious state. But the typical timeline for a coma is days to a few weeks. So if you're in a coma for about two to four weeks, outcomes after that would usually shift to moving into a vegetative state or that minimally conscious state, or maybe recovery. There's always a possibility to recover, or moving into death.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah. So it's two to four weeks, you're probably okay, but after that, things go very badly for you. And even within that two to four weeks, there's some pretty serious complications. As you are not moving at all, you're basically sleeping the day away, your muscles start to waste, you're at extreme risk for blood clots, uh, fluid can start to fill up your lungs, so you might get pneumonia. If you are not turned, you're gonna get bed sores. And anything that is causing rubbing or you're sitting on something like those bed sores, you're at risk for infection. And hospitals that have folks in comas, they manage all of these things very aggressively. There's not much they can do for muscle wasting, but then people are on pretty powerful anti-blood clotting drugs and they're constantly moved by staph, or beds have these kind of inflatable balloons that constantly jostle the person around who's in a coma. That way, no one part of their body has all of their weight on the bed.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

And that's why long-term comas are so very dangerous because of that reliance, our body relying on brain activity to regulate all of our breathing and our swallowing, the blood pressure, our hormones, and our immune system. And without that normal brain function, secondary damage does accumulate quite quickly. So, again, not um I'm not a medical professional, but it's not something to sneeze at.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

There are very rare cases where people have remained unconscious for months or years, but those are generally not a true coma, and they're in a vegetative state. Neurological recovery is rare and with serious impairment after they do quote unquote wake up. There is a very famous case of Terry Wallace, where that person did recover after years of being in a coma. So these long comas, I you can't say it's impossible to come out of a years-long coma. It's just very unlikely with our current technology.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

But in the book and the movie, did they have different technology, Jason? Or is that too much of a spoiler alert?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

I'm not gonna talk about it because it's clear in the trailer that Rylan wakes up from a coma. In fact, he says it in a tr in the trailer that he would, but I don't want to say any more than that. I'm gonna leave that as a bit of a cliffhanger for people who are interested in seeing the movie. Um and guess what? The early reviews are out, different kinds of press people and movie reviewers and folks who have got early access, they've seen the movie, and guess what they're saying about it, Chris?

SPEAKER_02 15:03

They're saying it's medically accurate.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

No, they're saying the movie's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Oh, okay.

Wrapping The Sci-Fi Plausibility

SPEAKER_01 15:11

No, some scientists have already broken down the book because the book has come out already. They've already done some of the heavy lifting and breaking down some of the science fiction that would work and some of the science fiction that wouldn't. I just thought it would be fun for us to talk about what what people maybe have seen in the trailer and if that's possible or not. Interstellar travel with current technology, not possible. Being in a long coma with and coming out of it okay, highly unlikely. What happens in the book or the movie? Hey, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

We're gonna find out soon enough because we have early tickets.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

That's right. Amaze, amaze, amaze. Now you don't know what that reference is, but after you see the movie, you'll get it.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yes. So the next time, I'll every time you talk, I'll bring that in. I'll be like, well, but I don't know what it is yet. And maybe by the time our listeners listen, the movie will be out.

Viral Sweden Cat Claim

SPEAKER_01 16:03

That's right. Okay, that's science news for this week. This week in Pet Science, let's break down a viral post about Sweden that our account was tagged about a hundred times in. No, that's a bit, that's a bit of a hyperbole, but dozens at least. You Chris, you don't really go through our messages on Instagram and Facebook, do you?

SPEAKER_02 16:25

I went through the one on Facebook. And so I know, yes, I read all about the Sweden's animal welfare law, and I read the comments from people who actually live in Sweden and their neighbor, their neighbors in Norway and talking about it. So I'm a little bit in the loop of the this law that they have.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

So a long story short, there is there was a post. I tried my best to figure out where it originated from, but there are sites that do these little infographics that are very clickbait-y, and it basically was it is now illegal to leave your cat home alone in Sweden. And I was and we were tagged in that. So I was like, Oh, that's interesting. And people were like, Oh, I guess you can't leave Bricks home alone. So people were tagging us with this, and because the post did so well, other sites just copied it. I'm not sure if they really were looking into it or just like wanting that one picture clickbait, but I did look into it and I wrote, I did a breakdown on Substack, so I thought we would talk about it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Um yeah, but cue the outrage, right? That's what gets the clicks and gets the upset. And without someone doing their due diligence to do some research, and then they just share, then that's how misinformation spreads. I'm glad we're talking about this.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Okay, so first off, it's not new. This, no, it's not. Sweden does have one of the strictest animal welfare systems in the world, and the Animal Welfare Act of 2018. So this is where this came in from, so it's not new. It states that animals must be treated well and protected from physical and mental suffering, and it recognizes that animals are sentient beings with needs. Now, from that, owners are responsible for ensuring their pets have enough food and water, they live in a suitable environment, they receive necessary care and supervision, and are not exposed to neglect or abandonment. Any of these obligations that you fail to do can result in fines or imprisonment within their animal cruelty and neglect rules and laws. Okay, so that's the 2018 thing. It goes into a little bit more specific rules for cats.

What Swedish Law Actually Says

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah, so they do have specific rules for cats being left alone. There are animal care guidelines where cats must be checked on at least twice per day, and they must have access to food, water, and a safe environment. And they should have human contact and monitoring to ensure their welfare. So on one of our comments, they said, Oh, what about using a camera? And someone who is from Sweden said, Nope, it has to be, it has to be a human person who is coming in to check on your animal. So if you go away for a trip, you actually must arrange for someone to come in to check on your cat. So getting a friend or a neighbor or a pet sitter to come in, to come in to check.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

So the law doesn't give a single precise number of hours, but twice daily check rules apply. Leaving a cat alone all weekend without anybody visiting is illegal. Leaving a cat home for a normal workday is usually fine, right? If you're gone for eight to ten hours, that's okay. Uh, leaving food and then disappearing for a couple days, like have making sure the litter box is clean and putting out a bunch of food, that's considered neglect. And for comparison, dogs in Sweden have even stricter rules. Generally, they can't be left alone for more than six hours during the day, which is which we would maybe get in trouble with occasionally, because sometimes our dogs are alone more than six hours a day.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Or created, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Or created, yeah. Here's where we get into some of the what the internet says, uh, and what people in Sweden say and where the truth may lie. Because this is fascinating. Before the I we started to do the podcast, Chris, I Googled it's now illegal to leave your cat home alone in Sweden. And guess what came up on Google in AI as a source?

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Bunsen and Beaker.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah, my own Substack post. Isn't that crazy? It cited me as being like the fact finder for this thing. Um, so that's that's a little that's a little troublesome um because my Substack post is based on whatever I could gather from the internet and folks who told me what's going on in Sweden. But I'm not the authority. It just said this, but because our Substack post was so popular, or I guess so many eyeballs saw it, it shot it to the front of what would maybe be considered a good source. Anyways, I just thought I'd mention that too. That's yeah, it's kind of crazy, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:23

That is that's Wikipedia when you could say whatever you wanted, like what I know, and Wikipedia, there you have it. And then they said, well, actually, maybe we should put some fact-checking measures into this, and it became more of a reliable source. But Jason, I think you're pretty reliable, but maybe you don't have a doctorate in taking care of cats like Dr.

Enforcement, Myths, And Media

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Sebastian Ball, who No, and I'm not from Sweden, like this is just from what I was from Sweden either. Yeah, translated documents from Sweden and what our fans have said who live in Sweden. That's sketchy. I just found that super sketchy. But, anyways, um, we did I did find there was an example of enforcement. A Swedish woman was fined about 900 US dollars after leaving her cat and fish alone in her apartment for nearly two weeks. Now, that's what the internet said. I didn't, it doesn't say who this Swedish woman is, it was just reported. And the sites that were reporting it weren't like Swedish news sites. They were like other, I don't know, like I don't think they're super reliable. So I don't know if that's true or not, because we have people in Norway and Sweden saying it's not restricted by law, which probably means it's not enforceable, but it's been on the books, and this is what you should do. The whole thing of not leaving your cat home alone, that's part of their that's part of the law, but it the people in Sweden were like they're not necessarily enforceable, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

This whole thing feels like the banana phone game, like the telephone game where you say the word banana and by the end it comes out octopus. Wow, I'm a little I'm a little leery about Google searches now.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

I know. Another lady from Sweden sent us a message. She lives in Sweden apparently. I can't verify this because she's just one of our fans. Um, she said that it's actually been on the books in Sweden earlier than 2018 since 2008. She's so frustrated that all this hype is about 18 years late. So there you go. I guess as we wrap up, it's a real thing, but it's not like all of a sudden it's now illegal. I don't think we've left Bricks home alone for because he's just been so little, but we definitely have had to leave Ginger home alone, but we've got somebody watching her while we're gone.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah, and like what we did with Bricks is we had him in a small room, and then I would drive home on my lunch hour and take care of him. It was a long haul getting him to where he is now, and now Gord's home with us. There's more opportunity for someone to be home 24-7 with our animals. And so Bernoulli is benefiting definitely from not being in the crate, and yeah, it's been a lot of positive changes here.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

And the last thing I'll mention, because I've had people comment on our sub stack and the posts we've made, that it is more strict for kittens. So this is like for adult cats. But kittens need to be the kittens need to be seen more than twice a day, and it's nebulous on that. It's just that it suggests that a kitten needs more human connection than twice a day.

Kittens, Care, And Practical Tips

SPEAKER_02 24:36

So I would agree with that. Anecdotally, every night I would go into the front room, the turret room, which was a safe space space away from the dogs. Not that the dogs weren't wonderful with bricks, but I secretly just wanted to hang out with bricks with myself solo, and we would have time, and I called it snuggle, snuggle time. Yeah, yeah, you would say he would snuggle right at my neck, and it was just a nice time for me to bond with him. So I agree, kittens need that special bond time, and now he is an amazing cat. He was an amazing kitten, he's definitely amazing and super cute and super friendly, and I still love cuddle, snuggle and cuddle time with him.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

That's right. Cats aren't aloof, they are they're very com they're very emotional creatures and they make strong bonds with their humans. So try your best if you're not in Sweden to make sure you see your cat twice a day. All right, that's pet science for this week. That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the Science Podcast. And a shout out to all the top dogs. That's the top tier of our Patreon community, the Pop Pack. You can sign up in our show notes. All right, Chris, let's hear those names that are part of the top dogs.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Amelia Fetting, Ree Oda, Carol Hanel, Jennifer Challenge, Linnea Janet, Karen Cronister, Vicky Otero, Christy Walker, Sarah Bram, Wendy, Diane, Mason and Luke, Helen Chin, Elizabeth Bourgeois, Marianne McNally, Katherine Jordan, Shelly Smith, Laura Steffenson, Tracy Leinbaugh, Anne Uchida, Heather Burbach, Kelly, Tracy Halbert, Ben Rather, Debbie Anderson, Sandy Brimer, Mary Rader, Bianca Hyde, Andrew Lynn, Brenda Clark, Brianne Haas, Peggy McKeel, Holly Birch, Kathy Zirker, Susan Wagner, and Liz Button.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

I wanna see how the world should round.