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Note: terrestrial chemistry is no different from chemistry that can occur anywhere, given the right molecules and conditions, and even then it’s a matter of degree.

Nitrogen being replaced by helium would actually be fine but for the niggling issue that we need nitrates. There are no heliates (?) to compensate. The name doesn’t even make sense… helium is the sole gas to have an ium end like metals- chemically it’s that meaningless what you call it as an ion…it shines elsewhere though.

For biology, it’s a necessary condition that the environment react with it and it reacts to the environment. Over time the two become deeply intertwined through the process of evolution.

It’s hard to see how that kind of evolution will occur if a lot of the environment is nonreactive.

Survival may be plausible though. There’s been some research showing some bacteria can survive in high helium environments. That’s a far cry from proving something like a bacterium can evolve in a helium environment that’s non-reactive though.

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Why would it be necessary for life to depend on breathing atmosphere? The atmosphere could just help in keeping the temperature even and provide some nice pressure, maybe that’s favorable over vacuum.
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Well, some years ago helium was a preferred way for suicide. This reflected very bad on the producers of party balloon helium tanks, so they added an amount of oxygen and it was no longer an effective way.

So the question becomes: How much of that atmosphere is helium?

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> helium was a preferred way for suicide

The era of ridiculous sounding last words came to an end

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Hmm, really? That's interesting.... [time passes] ... I found more information than I really needed on how to kill one's self with helium, and I saw some places making suggestions that helium be cut with oxygen, seemingly starting with a New Zealand coroner in 2011, but nothing suggesting this had been implemented at any sort of scale. The links I found on Amazon for party balloon helium tanks all mostly proudly state they are 99%+ helium.
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