Topic: Gibbons on helium sing like opera stars

[Chozo Ghost]

http://news.yahoo.com/gibbons-helium-sing-opera-stars-040215942.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Gibbons are jungle divas. The small apes use the same technique to project their songs through the forests of southeast Asia as top sopranos singing at the New York Metropolitan Opera or La Scala in Milan.

 That was the conclusion of research by Japanese scientists who tested the effect of helium gas on gibbon calls to see how their singing changed when their voices sounded abnormally high-pitched.

When I seen this I was reminded of Neal's avatar.

[Caterkiller]

Very interesting. I should probably read the entire article but did this science solve anything really?

[ShyGuy]

At least give me a video...

[NWR_insanolord]

We're running out of helium and don't currently have a way of getting more of it, and we're wasting it on making monkeys sing funny.

[ShyGuy]

Wouldn't it be funny if all the helium we've been sending into the upper atmosphere for all these years was causing teh global warming? We need to come up with a helium harvesting drone.

[Chozo Ghost]

We're running out of helium and don't currently have a way of getting more of it,

Helium is the 2nd most abundant element in the universe after Hydrogen.

It is being continuously produced inside the Earth by atomic decay. We will never run out of it.

[NWR_insanolord]

There's a difference between the element itself and usable forms of it. For instance, there's more hydrogen than anything else in the universe, but there's no good source of it to be used in fuel cells. The helium we use for things that require it is running out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/congress-turns-its-attention-to-americas-helium-crisis/2012/05/12/gIQA4fIbKU_blog.html

[Chozo Ghost]

There's a difference between the element itself and usable forms of it.

Helium is one of the so called "noble gases". It doesn't create compounds with other elements. It is inert. That's why you don't hear of stuff like Helium-Oxide or whatever. So any form of it that you find is going to be a usable form, because its going to be in elemental form and not a compound.

As for the article, the problem seems to be not so much a shortage of Helium, but a shortage of it actually being collected, saved, and re-used. Even though its a gas and lighter than air, we get the stuff out of the ground because its being continuously created there through radioactive decay where heavier and less stable elements break down into lighter ones. It tends to accumulate in gas fields and that's where we get most of it. So in order to solve the problem all that really needs to be done is get people who drill for gas to collect the Helium there along with it.

[TJ Spyke]

There's a difference between the element itself and usable forms of it.

It doesn't create compounds with other elements. It is inert. That's why you don't hear of stuff like Helium-Oxide or whatever. So any form of it that you find is going to be a usable form, because its going to be in elemental form and not a compound.

Not true actually, they just don't form compounds in normal circumstances. Only 2 noble gases are considered inert (the other is neon), and neon might be the only one soon since 3 stable helium compounds are theorized:  CsFHeO, N(CH3)4FHeO, and HHeF (known as helium fluorohydride). Other helium compounds are unstable or are stable and extremely reactive (like HeH+, or helium hydride ion).  Other noble gases can also form compounds (krypton and fluorine into Krypton difluoride being one example).

[Chozo Ghost]

Not true actually, they just don't form compounds in normal circumstances.

I know, but "normal circumstances" rules out any Helium compounds we would find naturally on the Earth. Maybe Helium can form a few compounds in certain laboratory conditions, or in extreme environments out in space, but here on Earth in nature it doesn't exist. There's only elemental Helium here.

[ShyGuy]

Is there at least an mp3 of the gibbons singing?

[Chozo Ghost]

Is there at least an mp3 of the gibbons singing?

I looked on youtube and found this

[ShyGuy]

That was disappointing.

[Chozo Ghost]

Yeah, I know. I would like a clip or mp3 of them singing phantom of the opera or whatever. That would be cool. But I don't think something like that exists... (yet).