Helium: South Africa strikes new 'gold'

In a grassy plain in South Africa, once the world's largest gold producer, prospectors have stumbled upon a new treasure: helium.

Huge helium discovery 'a life-saving find'

A new approach to gas exploration has discovered a huge helium gas field, which could address the increasingly critical shortage of this vital yet rare element.

Probing Question: Are we running out of helium?

Party planners, take note: the atmosphere may become a little deflated at gala events in the future. Some scientists are sounding the alarm about the wastefulness of using helium—a rare, non-renewable gas—to fill party ...

Physicists create tabletop antimatter 'gun'

(Phys.org) —An international team of physicists working at the University of Michigan has succeeded in building a tabletop antimatter "gun" capable of spewing short bursts of positrons. In their paper published in the journal ...

Up, up and away: Chemists say 'yes,' helium can form compounds

Can helium bond with other elements to form a stable compound? Students attentive to Utah State University professor Alex Boldyrev's introductory chemistry lectures would immediately respond "no." And they'd be correct – ...

Puffy planets lose atmospheres, become super-Earths

Astronomers have identified two different cases of "mini-Neptune" planets that are losing their puffy atmospheres and likely transforming into super-Earths. Radiation from the planets' stars is stripping away their atmospheres, ...

Evidence of a local hot bubble carved by a supernova

I spent this past weekend backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park, where although the snow-swept peaks and the dangerously close wildlife were staggering, the night sky stood in triumph. Without a fire, the stars, a few ...

Our galaxy might hold thousands of ticking 'time bombs'

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the Hollywood blockbuster "Speed," a bomb on a bus is rigged to blow up if the bus slows down below 50 miles per hour. The premise - slow down and you explode - makes for a great action movie plot, and ...

page 1 from 7