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How a Helium Leak Disabled Every iPhone In a Medical Facility (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: In one of the strangest system admin tales of all time, one IT guy details how a new MRI machine managed to disable every single iPhone, Apple watch and iPad in a medical facility while leaving the rest of the devices untouched. Eric Woolridge, a system administrator at Morris Hospital in Illinois, said in a detailed post on the r/sysadmin subreddit that helium was to blame for the malfunctioning iPhones. "[T]he MRI installation involves supercooling the giant magnet in the machine by boiling off liquid helium," reports Motherboard. "This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility. In all, about 120 liters of helium (or about 90,000 cubic meters in its gaseous state) was pumped out of the MRI room and an untold amount leaked into the rest of the hospital."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."
Why not try to recapture it
They use PMT tubes, and helium will leak thru glass seals easily, which is what happened to these chips.
They all changed frequency, and aren't working right. :)
The PMT's will just arc internally, glowing a nice bright orange, if you could see them. :D
It will drop the power supply rails, and there's no fixing the tubes, they'll have to be replaced.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
(On earth)
Using MEMS instead of a quartz crystal is like using an inscribed candle instead of a pendulum. It's a major step in the wrong direction.
Apple may have saved a whole 2 cents per $1000 phone by doing that.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They quit using quartz based clocks?
Why?
Oh, I know there will be some clever reason why the change is superior. This story just points out where 'clever' sometimes leads.
So we can discreetly pop a canister of helium on the bus to kill all the iGadgets?
Obviously the helium concentration wasn't very high -- people could breathe and talk without sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk. I wonder if this can be exploited to mess with iPhone-owning hipsters at a party -- a balloon inflator sized helium tank and the appropriate valve orifice should do it...
OMG! My phone just died! *head explodes*
They could have upgraded their MRI to new ones that do not need to consume so much liquid helium in the first place.
http://mriquestions.com/liquid...
In fact, new types of MRI machine no longer require liquid helium !!
You can expect the next generation of superconducting MR scanners to contain no cryogens at all. This is largely due to the development of efficient pulse tube and 2-stage Gifford-McMahon (G-M) cryocoolers that are able to maintain temperatures below the 9.4ÂK required for NbTi superconductivity without liquid helium
If the helium concentration was high enough to affect phones this way, they're lucky it didn't displace too much oxygen and freaking kill people.
They really should have sensors to detect these conditions in places where large amounts of gas is used.
Helium detector.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Gyro & Accelerometer don't need exposure to the atmosphere... air pressure sensor perhaps?
Lots of light headed Mickey Mouse voices in radiology that day too no?
if you had an iphone and there was a helium leak, you couldn't call for help.
He ruined my phone, how dare He?! What have I ever done to He?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
That's all.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Reminder that helium is mined from the earth, can not be recovered once it's in the atmosphere, and until we start fusing hydrogen atoms, is non-renewable.
If it has important industrial applications, why are we still filling balloons at children's parties with it?
Siri (in elevated voice): What can I help you with?
Helium goes right through solid objects.
Plastics have molecules, and holes between molecules, about 25,000 times larger than a helium atom. Helium gas is normally single atoms, not molecules.
That's the challenge with helium hard drives. If you try to use a typical rubber seal, the holes between rubber molecules are much larger than helium atoms, allowing the helium to go right through almost as if the rubber wasn't there.
You may have noticed a helium balloon stops floating overnight. That's because the helium goes out right through the rubber. Interestingly, air leaks INTO the balloon due to something called partial pressure.
For that whole week, everyone in that hospital sounded hilarious.
The user manual says gases like helium can damage the phone.
exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality
Mobile phones should not be taken into a facility with a MRI machine anyway. ... which is why every such facility has "No cell phones" signs in every room and corridor.
The radio waves emitted from the phone could interfere with the MRI machine's sensitive sensors
The phones will not emit only when in "use", but will regularly try to connect to the nearest cell tower even when "off". Therefore, it is best not to bring it there at all.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
So Siri started speaking in a weird, high-pitched voice ?
This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility.
(a) Why isn't the helium captured rather than simply vented/released? It doesn't grow on trees.
(b) People can die if the helium concentration gets too high. Having it leak into a fucking hospital seems rather care/reckless.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
No, you're a malfunctioning iPhone suffering from helium intoxication.
Background: I'm on the technical team for a research unit that has an MRI machine of its own and access to another. Plus I do Helium refills for an MEG facility. This does not ring true. An MRI is going to have something like 500L of liquid helium in it. It doesn't cool by "Boiling it off". In fact a high boil-off rate is a bad thing. The unit will have a chiller to keep the temperature of the helium down and probably a recondenser to reduce loss. If the unit quenched during install then all the helium will have boiled off. A lot more than 120L. Also the vents are certified so that *All* the helium that boils off goes up and out safely. Add to that all these facilities have O2 alarm systems, this must have been a very small, slow leak over the course of months. Any leaking helium will have risen straight up to the ceiling and spread out, maybe working its way up into cracks and passing to above floors at a massively reduced concentration. At the levels we're talking about here, if the helium were the problem then we'd be seeing a spate of iPhone failures at children's parties from the helium in the balloons.
... when applied to other peoples expensive Apple gadgets.
I think it's more likely that an electromagnetic pulse fried the Apple products. The MRI 5-gauss line is only applicable in steady state operations. When the 500-1000a current in the super conducting coils ramps up or down, it's got a hell of a kick. Leave the electronics in the car when they come to re-charge the coils.
n/t
If androids dream of electric sheep, do iOSes dream of Slashdot women?
Ezekiel 23:20
"in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon"
Otherwise known as cheaper and less accurate clocks.
While this has become an iPhone bashing pissing contest.... I really appreciate the craziness of this story.
Now if only the phone died from something poisonous. All the iPhone users run to their Tesla's and turn on the air filter to save their lives. Meanwhile all Android people are like "what?"
The life of the have and have nots :-)
That's what they get for wasting an irreplaceable material.
Letting the helium evaporate away, and making virtually no attempt to collect and save or reuse it? Tch tch.
Avalanche PD's suck.
They take almost as much voltage as pmt's, and only have a gain around 200.
SiPM's are just coming onto the market, and they will replace both.
There are hundreds of thousands of PMT's in scanners in the World right now.
We used APD's in PET/MR systems, because they work in a magnetic field. Unlike PMT's.
The weirdest thing of all that was that we were seeing Positrons 60" outside the MR bore, ejected by the magnetic field, that "Can't happen!" lol.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Well, golly, Wilbur! My [other brand] device continues to work fine even when outside the service area.
That said, what if a semi-accurate clock is required for the hardware, and it isn't even the same "clock" as the thing in the corner of the screen that tells you the time? What then?!
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