Scientists have been issuing warnings for years about the world’s shrinking helium supply. Now, it's at a 'tipping point.'
Yes, helium is known for making you sound like a chipmunk and filling your balloons. But the lighter-than-air element has far weightier uses.
Liquid helium is like liquid gold to scientists, according to Sophia Hayes, a professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and one of the nation’s leading helium experts. Even fictitious scientists, like the ones featured on the popular sitcom,"The Big Bang Theory," have devoted entire episodes to the search for the gas. In an episode that aired in October 2015, entitled “The Helium Insufficiency,” two of the show’s main characters, Leonard and Sheldon, resort to shady dealings in a dark alley to source helium for an experiment.
In addition to being used as a cooling fluid for superconducting magnets, which are in turn used for experiments related to the development of pharmaceutical drugs, helium is also used by NASA to separate fuels in rockets and by the Defense Department to create cutting edge tools, including radiation-detecting sensors.Although helium is the second most prevalent element in the universe, most of it dissipates into the earth’s atmosphere.
Rubber ball, frozen to near absolute zero by liquid helium, shatters and vaporizes as it strikes floor on Sept. 01, 1948Hayes said she’s in an international network of scientists that regularly exchange emails about helium supplies. The administration indicated at the time that a plan of action for helium would be issued as soon as last summer, but nearly a year later, the scientific community is still waiting.
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