this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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Unfortunately it's also critical for MRIs.
Yeah, what a crazy headline that AI was the thing mentioned and not 1 of the many other real life uses that offer greater solutions to us.
If only I could believe that's because MRIs are more important so their supply isn't in jeopardy.
I need more happy birthday balloons.
i wanna do a silly voice
Because clickbaiting the 'AI bad' people is worth more advertising money than actually examining the effects of a helium shortage.
And making your voice sound funny
Sulfur hexafluoride does the opposite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvvSIAqOkIw
IIRC it's also one of the worst greenhouse gasses in existence, unfortunately.
Edit: the worst greenhouse gas. Why are cool things always secretly terrible?
Can you stand upside down to get dense gasses out of your lungs? Asking for a friend
I assume so. Here's a video of someone floating a boat (apparently in air) in it, and then sinking it by pouring cups of sulfur hexafluoride over it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee2NaYRnRGo
If it avoids diffusing into air to the degree that you can scoop it up and pour it, I'd imagine that it'd pour out of one's lungs the same way.
But if you just want to get most of it out of your lungs
like, you've been breathing it and don't want to asphyxiate
I imagine that exhaling all the air you can and inhaling air and doing that a few times would probably do a pretty good job, the way the Mythbusters video above did with the helium.
Maybe we'll get lucky, and by the time the helium supply is restored, we've done away with the shitty not-really-AI craze, saving more helium for things of use to humanity.
Maybe this is why they're now ramping up going back to the moon? Gonna start fuckin the moon up for all that sweet Helium 3.
We could be at war with Iran for a century, sending strike teams in to siphon helium out of the ground and smuggle it back to the US in stealth jets and submarines, and it would still be significantly cheaper than trying to mine the moon.
I sure hope not. I saw how that went in the Time Machine remake!
They were blasting to build luxury condos iirc
Okay, but do you really think we're going to prioritize the enormous loss-leading CSAM engines over lifesaving medical diagnostics machines?
I trust our leaders to make the right decisions. Just a small bump in the road or two lately, that's all.
Thanks for reminding me of the date
Oh, I'll be damned. Didn't even dawn on me.
Yes, yes we are.
My understanding is that MRIs don't consume helium, in the same way air conditioning units don't consume refrigerant, so helium is only needed for making new MRI machines.
New ones, and not all if them, work this way, as in there's tiny helium condensing unit. Older ones just let it go and require topping up every couple months (guessing by how often helium in NMR is topped up). Also every emergency shutdown invariably blows off all of helium inside