this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
1403 points (97.7% liked)

Science Memes

17432 readers
2402 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I keep reading about how they don't have enough helium supply. Is everything fake news?

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 34 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The universe is full of Helium.

It's just not concentrated here on Earth.

And also we want a very specific isotope of helium. The stuff you put in a balloon isn't the same helium the planet is getting low on.

[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I read that if it wasn't for the US dumping it's strategic helium supply, the price of a party balloon would be $50. Yes, Helium 3 gets attention for Fusion research but regular Helium is used heavily in imaging equipment like MRI's. The Large Hadron Collider needs 130 metric tons of the stuff.

[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

Helium is one of those things I don't really care about. I could tell you I never liked balloons because of their impact on the environment, and that would be true, especially with ones getting released into the air. However I also have a really selfish reason, and that was cleaning them up. I never really liked water balloons for the same reasons, and I'm so happy I haven't been around much confetti.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

helium3 is getting low, right? I had heard we're looking at mining operations on the moon, but I think that would be a very bad idea...

nothing like unchecked capitalism in space.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

There's virtually no helium 3 on Earth, but that's not because we're using it up, it's because there was essentially never any really to begin with.

The moon has helium 3 on its surface so naturally that leads to the idea of mining the moon for the material. But there are no actual serious plans to do so, for one thing nobody knows how you would actually go about doing that. Besides there's practically no market for it, it's used in some fusion research but only a tiny quantity is required and that can be supplied with domestic supplies more or less forever, since it's possible to manufacture it from normal helium.

[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 3 points 1 day ago

Honestly we're probably way too late to stop that from happening. That's been part of Elon's plans for a long time. Battery power, robot tech, space technology. And Elon isn't the only player eyeing what's out there.

[–] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think there was a this movie 🤔 about helium 3 🤔 and other stuff on the moon 🤔🤔

Ohhh, yea

It was Nazis 😂

[–] reptar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wait! What about the movie "Moon" (I think).

Isn't that what they were mining?

Were there Nazis in Moon and I've forgotten? I mostly remember 1 or 2 guys

[–] ghen@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

By the time we figure out something better than capitalism will have a few more solar systems to screw up on the new thing too.