I wonder if this article got inspired by the recent movie Project Hail Mary?

Another thing related to this subject is the frequency in watch making. I own a manual winding watch that I wear everyday. It is certainly an engineering marvel. These watches are ticking by the hair spring and its frequencies are targeted to 2.5Hz to 4Hz (5 times per second, or 8 times per second). I don't know the rationale behind these numbers. I guess that they must have been a combination of engineering constraints and finding a good balance to keep every second accurate.