The US Congress finalized on 26 September a bill to avert an imminent shutdown of the federal helium reserve, which provides more than one-third of the worlds supply. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill, which will ramp down the reserve over several years instead of closing it abruptly in October. Experts had predicted that the sudden shutdown would cause a spike in helium prices. Liquid helium is commonly used as a coolant for ultra-low-temperature physics experiments and magnetic resonance imaging machines. See go.nature.com/vlmgbt for more.
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