…sooner or later, helium will become more precious than gold. Though best known as the lifting gas in balloons (and the high squeaky voices it evokes when inhaled), helium’s buoyancy, inertness, and other unique properties make it irreplaceable for some of our civilization’s highest technologies. Without large amounts of helium, liquid-fueled rockets cannot be safely tested and launched, semiconductors and optical fibers cannot be easily manufactured, and cryogenically cooled particle accelerators and medical MRI machines cannot function. Helium may also prove crucial as a working fluid or even a fuel in future nuclear reactors. And unlike gold, which can be eternally recovered and shaped to new functions, only very expensive countermeasures can prevent helium, once used, from escaping into the atmosphere and drifting away into outer space.

Helium’s rarity on Earth and relative abundance in America are cosmic and planetary accidents. After hydrogen, helium is the second most common element in the universe, with the bulk of it formed during the big bang.

{ Seed magazine | Continue reading }

photo { Stephen Shore }

{ Tap water can be unhealthy but still legal | NY Times | full story }

A pesticide that is used around the world can turn male frogs into egg-producing females, a new study has shown.

The pesticide, atrazine, has infiltrated water supplies and can travel to areas hundreds of kilometers from the place where it was originally used. Some research has suggested that atrazine can affect the development of amphibians, but these findings have been disputed.

{ Conservation magazine | Continue reading }