Tomorrow is Today

3D Printing Cyborg Tech: ‘Bio’ Ear Melds Electronics and Biology to Hear Radio Waves

Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can “hear” radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability.

The researchers’ primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile means to merge electronics with tissue. The scientists used 3D printing of cells and nanoparticles followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear.

(via futurescope)

Death of Gun Control Update: Defense Distributed’s 3D Printable WikiWeapon Coming in Mid-May

The Wiki Weapon will be made of 12 parts, printed out of ABS — conventional, fairly sturdy 3D-printed thermoplastic. According to Wilson, there will probably be just one metal part, the firing pin, while the rest — including the barrel — will be made out of plastic. As for whether it’ll actually work, Wilson and co won’t know until they actually build it, which will hopefully be in a couple of weeks. If all goes to plan, Wilson says the 3D-printed gun — which will be a custom design, rather than a reproduction of an existing pistol — will be able to fire a “few shots” before melting or breaking. After testing, the design will be uploaded to the web, so that anyone with a 3D printer can print out the handgun. You’ll still need to source your own ammunition and firing pin, though.

As you can imagine, a gun made entirely out of plastic, except for the very tip of the firing pin, would be almost undetectable by security scanners — which is a problem, because there’s the  Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988. The Act prevents DefDist from making or selling undetectable guns. ”We’re gonna be flirting with the edge of detectability,” Wilson says. ”It’s possible that there is no good way for us to comply [with the Act] and that would open up a line of prosecution.” While it seems almost certain that Wilson himself will break the law by making a 3D-printed weapon, it’ll be interesting to see if the law also prevents him from uploading the design to the internet.

(via The first all-plastic 3D-printed gun will be available to download in ‘two weeks’ | ExtremeTech)

Using 3D Printers to Make Insect-based Food Products More Attractive to Western Consumers

…Designer Susana Soaresand a team of food scientists and engineers have designed a 3D printer that makes biscuits from insect flour.

Just follow the recipe: grind up bugs and mix with icing butter, cream cheese or water to form the right consistency to go through the 3D printer’s nozzle. Choose your favourite biscuit design and print out your snack: an exquisite morsel ready for cooking.

The installation asks whether by turning edible insects into intriguing forms, we could overcome the typical Western aversion to snacking on creepy-crawlies. Elsewhere, insects are on the menu for an estimated 80 per cent of the world’s population, for the good reason that they have high nutritional value. Down just four grasshoppers and you’ll get as much calcium as a glass of milk; by weight, dung beetles contain more protein than beef.

(via Beautiful bug biscuits to tempt the squeamish - environment - 23 April 2013 - New Scientist)

“Chiplets”: Xerox Introduces New Technique to 3D Print Computer Chips 

[Xerox’s] new technique, known as xerographic micro-assembly, breaks down old-fashioned silicon chip designs into thousands of tiny chiplets, and then custom assembles them with an advanced and mysterious 3D printing machine. The device apparently uses microscopic electric fields to place each mote of silicon smart dust on a template in the correct position and orientation…

Xerographic printing is an extension of a related technology known as Fluidic Self Assemby (FSA), which was previously developed by Alien technology, a company that also makes RFID tags.

In FSA, the nanoblock computing elements float in solution, and are guided into holes in an appropriate substrate. The process is reminiscent of protein subunits assembling from the cytoplasm onto a lipid membrane.

Here, chiplets would basically be the electronic version of Henry Ford’s interchangeable parts system, only in this case, each part is smaller than a grain of sand.

(via Chiplets: Xerox’s grand vision for next-generation computer assembly | ExtremeTech)

“Replacement” Material Synthesized to 3D Print Artificial Human  Tissue

Water and fat — those are the two primary building blocks Oxford University researchers have used to 3D print the droplet you see above. Sounds unremarkable until you consider its intended application as a human tissue replacement. By stringing together thousands of these so-called droplets (which measure about 50 microns across) using a custom-built 3D printer, the Oxford team believes it has engineered a “new type of material” that could eventually be used to ferry drugs throughout our internal systems to a specific target site, fill-in for damaged tissues or even mimic neural pathways via specially printed protein pores. The potential applications for medical science are impressive enough, but consider this additional benefit: since the droplets contain no genetic material, scientists can completely sidestep all the ethical red tape surrounding the alternative stem cell approach to artificial tissue. At present, the team’s been able to string about 35,000 of the droplets together, but there’s no real cap as to how large or even what type of networks can be made.

(via Oxford University researchers create new 3D printed ‘soft material’ that could replace human tissue)

Notre Dame Researchers 3D Print Small Animal Skeletons From CT Scans of Live Pets

…”3D Printing of Preclinical X-ray Computed Tomographic Data Sets” outlined by a team of Notre Dame students and a rep from MakerBot certainly beats getting your pet’s face printed on a sweater.

The researchers have outlined a method for CT scanning live mice, rats and rabbits and printing out their skeletal structures in plastic. There are some cool research applications for such functionality, but more importantly, who could ask for a creepier gift for the pet owner in your life?

(via Notre Dame students highlight method for 3D printing skeletons of living animals)

3D-printed implant used to replace 75 percent of man’s skull

A 3D-printed implant was used to replace 75 percent of a man’s skull in a surgical procedure earlier this week. The prosthetic was constructed using an additive printing process, and was implanted following manufacturer Oxford Performance Materials receiving FDA approval to use the technology last month. 

(ht thisistheverge)

NASA’s Giant Robot Moon Termites 3D Print Habitations Using Dust and Microwaves

The first lunar base on the Moon may not be built by human hands, but rather by a giant spider-like robot built by NASA that can bind the dusty soil into giant bubble structures where astronauts can live, conduct experiments, relax or perhaps even cultivate crops.

We’ve already covered the European Space Agency’s (ESA) work with architecture firm Foster Partners on a proposal for a 3D-printed moonbase, and there are similarities between the two bases—both would be located in Shackleton Crater near the Moon’s south pole, where sunlight (and thus solar energy) is nearly constant due to the Moon’s inclination on the crater’s rim, and both use lunar dust as their basic building material.

However, while the ESA’s building would be constructed almost exactly the same way a house would be 3D-printed on Earth, this latest wheeze—SinterHab—uses NASA technology for something a fair bit more ambitious.

(via Giant NASA spider robots could 3D print lunar base | Ars Technica)

A New Technique to 3D Print Human Ears

A team of bioengineers and physicians over at Cornell University recently detailed their work to 3D print lifelike ears that may be used to treat birth defects like microtia and assist those who have lost or damaged an ear due to an accident or cancer.

The product, which is, “practically identical to the human ear,” according to the school, was created using 3D printing and gels made from living cells — collagen was gathered from rat tails and cartilage cells were taken from cow’s ears.

The whole process is quite quick, according to associate professor Lawrence Bonassar, who co-authored the report on the matter, “It takes half a day to design the mold, a day or so to print it, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and we can remove the ear 15 minutes later. We trim the ear and then let it culture for several days in nourishing cell culture media before it is implanted.”

(via Cornell scientists 3D print ears with help from rat tails and cow ears)