What is your favorite chemical element?

Dang...that was quick. Why, might I ask?

in middle school we had to do a small project on one element, i picked arsenic and since then its been my fav. it just has a lot of cool applications, i was especially amazed that it can be used as poison to merk people but also in medicines? crazy how nature do dat

I had a cylinder of the gray, semi-metallic form to show my students. It was double sealed and they could not touch it.

How sweet. A glowing response.

  What, no Asker's Pick for her, Professor?
(You're slipping, dude.)

So are you. you  your

  Where did I write either "you" or "your"?

It is quite inert and does not kill brain cells.

Really? My mom lied then :/ lol she did work at a place that sold medical gasses and such  for a while, maybe she just got sick of bringing us home tanks of helium. 

Sucking it straight out of the tank is dangerous. The pressure can make your lungs explode. You can also suffocate.

The amount a balloon can hold won't hurt you.

Never sucked it right out of the tank :) but we did get tanks to our house. 

Yes...it is a suffocating gas, as is any other than oxygen. Sucking any gas from a pressurized tank is always a hazard. And you are correct...a balloon full is a gas...

Helium is not suffocating. It won't absorb CO2. Nitrogen will absorb CO2 and you can fall asleep on a single breath.

Three minutes in a pure helium atmosphere devoid of oxygen will cause unconsciousness, ten minutes will kill you.

That's not because of the helium, only the lack of oxygen. A plastic bag over the face has the same effect.

I believe there is a word for that...suffocation.

It can be made to react, but any reaction involving helium is extremely endothermic and the compunds produced are unstable. I did see an experiment where they created helium tetrafluoride.

I haven't seen that one yet. Very unstable, I would imagine.

Extreme pressure and they had to hit it with some unthinkable number of eV. Formed a reddish haze that dissipated in seconds.

I guess we must ask the question...why? Or WTF?

Probably just to see if they could. Successful, if only briefly. Why do they create chemical elements that only exist for microseconds? Anything above 104?