Hey! Don’t use helium in toy balloons! The gas is needed for MRI magnets, manufacturing of fiber optics cables and semiconductors, airbags, welding, cryogenics, laser pointers, gas-leak detection, cooling of nuclear reactors, production of zirconium and titanium, etc., etc. And it’s getting scarcer, and more expensive, every year.
OK, if you Google “badminton birdie vs. shuttlecock”, the first item (for me) (on li-ning-sports dot com) claims just the opposite: birdies are plastic, shuttlecocks are feathers, especially in the U.S.
She’s not the only one. We gave away our last TV in about 2007, and haven’t missed it.