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Scientists have recreated the Universe's first molecule

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250803011840.htm
24•LAsteNERD•2d ago

Comments

LAsteNERD•2d ago
So does helium hydride just not exist naturally anymore? Wondering why they had to recreate it.
rcxdude•5h ago
Not in an easily accessible way. It's an extremely fragile and reactive molecule that more or less falls apart as soon as it touches anything else. It only naturally exists nowadays in the interstellar medium.
terminalbraid•5h ago
It's too reactive to exist in meaningful quantities on earth. The title is also stretching the bounds of credibility as helium hydride has been studied in a lab for about 100 years. What's novel about this experiment is studying reaction rates with deuterium at low temperatures to feed into early universe models.
pytness•5h ago
From the wiki[0]: "It is believed to be the first compound to have formed in the universe"

They created the molecule under space conditions:

"The experiment was carried out at the Cryogenic Storage Ring (CSR) at the MPIK in Heidelberg — a globally unique instrument for investigating molecular and atomic reactions under space-like conditions [...] They found that, contrary to earlier predictions, the rate at which this reaction proceeds does not slow down with decreasing temperature [...] Since the concentrations of molecules such as HeH⁺ and molecular hydrogen (H2 or HD) played an important role in the formation of the first stars, this result brings us closer to solving the mystery of their formation."

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_hydride_ion#Interstella...

HeliumHydride•5h ago
Helium hydride doesn't exist naturally because it will protonate anything it comes into contact with.
throwanem•2h ago
Yet here you are. Protonating everything, no doubt.
QuesnayJr•4h ago
The Wikipedia article on helium hydride has the most hardcore sentence I've ever seen on the site: "Since HeH+ reacts with every substance, it cannot be stored in any container." It sounds like something out of a comic book.
lloeki•4h ago
Later down:

> In fact, HeH+ is the strongest known acid, with a proton affinity of 177.8 kJ/mol, or a pKa of −63

Long time I didn't do chemistry but that pKa made me jump off of my chair.

For comparison hydrochloric acid is ~10.

Since it's a charged molecule one could maybe contain it in an EM field to have some ready-to-use "eat anything" material.

Almost - but not quite - as scary as FOOF:

> Dioxygen difluoride reacts vigorously with nearly every chemical it encounters (including ordinary ice) leading to its onomatopoeic nickname FOOF (a play on its chemical structure and its explosive tendencies)

"vigorously" being quite an understatement.

perching_aix•4h ago
I guess maybe via magnetic confinement it should still be possible to store?
amelius•2h ago
I suppose that is ... progress?

Infinite Pixels

https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2025/08/07/infinite-pixels/
59•OuterVale•49m ago•1 comments

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https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/how-baltimore-assessments-accidentally
24•surprisetalk•1h ago•1 comments

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14•PaulHoule•1h ago•0 comments

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https://blog.google/technology/developers/introducing-gemini-cli-github-actions/
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49•rbanffy•3h ago•35 comments

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31•stasher-dev•2h ago•22 comments

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https://leonardo.chiariglione.org/
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35•gethackteam•1h ago•29 comments

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https://github.com/manzaltu/claude-code-ide.el
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https://www.projecthyperion.org
316•codeulike•17h ago•242 comments

Debounce

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Debounce
93•aanthonymax•2d ago•47 comments

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/27/stuart-little-art-historian-long-lost-hungarian-masterpiece
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36•zdw•3d ago•32 comments

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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0213
210•freediver•14h ago•133 comments

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https://spillhistorie.no/2025/07/31/maybe-we-should-do-an-updated-version/
6•Kolorabi•1h ago•1 comments

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https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03814
102•pinewurst•12h ago•34 comments

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310•todsacerdoti•18h ago•79 comments