Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe. So why is there a global helium shortage? Follow the trail of our spendthrift affair with this elusive noble gas and find out why its future remains up in the air—plus, learn about helium’s many uses, from cooling magnets in MRI machines to enabling deep-sea divers to safely breathe under pressure. Get all this and more from our series on the periodic table, Everything Matters.

In the spirit of amplifying the Black Lives Matter movement and to avoid any appearance of having appropriated that title, our series of talks formerly called Everything Matters: Tales from the Periodic Table will now be called, simply, Tales from the Periodic Table. Please excuse the former title on videos made in the past.