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March 1 (UPI) -- The amount of helium in underground geological formations could satisfy thousands of years of global demand, researchers said in an article published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Like other essential commodities, there are supply-side concerns for helium as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. Sanctions and other restrictions mean supplies from Russia's Amur plant, expected to satisfy about 35% of global demand, are no longer available. Researchers from Oxford University, Durham University and the University of Toronto estimate helium is a $6 billion market. The element is used in everything from fiber optics...

Scientists have discovered a new type of uranium that is the lightest ever known. The discovery could reveal more about a weird alpha particle that gets ejected from certain radioactive elements as they decay. The newfound uranium, called uranium-214, is an isotope, or a variant of the element, with 30 more neutrons than protons, one fewer neutron than the next-lightest known uranium isotope. Because neutrons have mass, uranium-214 is much lighter than more common uranium isotopes, including uranium-235, which is used in nuclear reactors and has 51 extra neutrons. This newfound isotope isn't just lighter than others, but it also...

NASA’s Curiosity rover returned some seriously surprising data to Earth earlier this year, with readings of elevated methane levels that were hard to explain. Subsequent tests attempted to pin down the cause of the higher-than-expected readings but scientists have yet to come up with a definitive answer. Now, as questions about methane continue to swirl, scientists studying the behavior of gasses on Mars have noticed that oxygen on the Red Planet also acts much differently than it does on Earth. The observations were made in the Gale Crater, which the rover has called home since it landed there back in...

The Noble Clock: Radioactive Dating, Part 3 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * Radioactive dating methods—many of which are quite elaborate—have numerous physical condition requirements that cannot realistically remain unaffected over millions and perhaps billions of years. Since the potassium-argon dating methods clearly appear to be unreliable, why should any rational person trust them to provide accurate dates for rocks? In the early 1950s, scientists established theories for using the decay of radioactive potassium (40K) to argon (40Ar) as a clock for dating certain types of rocks. Called “noble” because it rarely bonds with other elements, argon (Ar) is one...

CNSNews.com) – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed taking 72 hazardous chemicals off of its approved list of inert ingredients allowed for use in pesticides. (See EPA chemical substances for removal.pdf) But the inclusion of argon (AR) - a naturally occurring element and the third most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere - has left some people scratching their heads. According to the Gas Encyclopedia, “the name argon comes from the Greek argos, meaning ‘the lazy one’” because it is so chemically stable. The element, which was discovered in 1894, is “so unreactive” that it is primarily used to...

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “noble” cause corruption. Documentation follows. From IceAgeNow - the American EPA has stunned observers, with a list of inert additives for pesticide formulations they intend to ban, which includes the noble gas Argon. Its hard to imagine a more inoffensive substance than Argon. As a noble gas, Argon is chemically inert – it participates in no chemical reactions whatsoever, except under exotic conditions – there are no known chemical compounds which can survive at room temperature which include Argon. Argon is not a greenhouse gas. But Argon is incredibly useful to...

There was a small surprise: Viking found nitrogen to be the second most abundant gas in the Martian air, but Curiosity’s measurements revealed a nearly equal abundance of nitrogen and argon, a stable noble gas. Mission scientists are puzzled, but suspect it might have to do with the different tools used to sample the atmosphere.

Air is crucial to human life, and the absence of a breathable atmosphere is one of the main obstacles to discovering other planets. Russian scientists have reproduced a gas mixture that human beings may breathe on the way to Mars and when on the Red Planet. Staff at the Moscow Biomedical Problems Institute have constructed an experimental capsule and reproduced within it the conditions that might be encountered during a mission to Mars. The gas inside accounts for only one per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere but there’s plenty of it on Mars as the gas inside is argon. Mixed...

A chemical study of Martian meteorites implies that the planet has always been cold and was rarely above freezing.Writing in Science, researchers have been able to determine the maximum temperature the rock experienced. There is no evidence that it was ever warm, they say, as it records near surface conditions for four billion years. The water erosional features seen on Mars must have been made during very brief periods, they conclude. Thermal historyAlthough the current average temperature at the Martian equator is about minus 55 Celsius, many scientists believe that the Red Planet was once warm enough for water...