The presenter of the Royal Institution's 2012 Christmas
Lectures, Peter Wothers, will use the series to argue against
wasting valuable helium gas in party In a number of lectures
entitled The Modern Alchemist, Wothers, a chemist at the
University of Cambridge and a fellow of the Royal Society of
Chemistry, warns that frivolous uses of our diminishing supplies
of helium are a great "The scarcity of helium is a really
serious issue," Wothers will say. "I can imagine that in 50
years time our children will be saying 'I can't believe they
used such a precious material to fill Despite being the second
most abundant material in the universe, helium is scarce on
Earth as its lightness mean it is not gravitationally bound to
the atmosphere and is constantly being lost to space. The
majority of the world's helium supply is created through natural
radioactive decay and cannot be artificially synthesised meaning
the gas is a non-renewable resource. Aside from party balloons,
helium has a wide range of important applicat