But
now additive manufacturing has crept into a new realm with the
first-ever mobile bioprinter; it doesn't layer plastic into design
shapes, but rather, prints skin onto wounds. It's not the first time
that 3D printing has been used in medicine – they've used it to create
organs and vessels and limbs. But the practicality and efficacy of a
mobile skin printer surely seems like it could come in handy.
"Imagine
a day when a bioprinter filled with a patient's own cells can be
wheeled right to the bedside to treat large wounds or burns by printing
skin, layer by layer, to begin the healing process," notes a statement from Wake Forest School of Medicine. "That day is not far off."
Scientists
from the school's Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) have
created the mobile skin bioprinting system that sounds even more
futuristic than a 3D-printed colony on Mars.
Peter H. Diamandis Singularity Hub We are on the verge of transforming one of society’s most fundamental building blocks: manufacturing. As new technologies enable manufacturers to customize everything, these same agents are quickly turning consumers into inventors. Following the agricultural revolution some 5,000 years ago, humanity made a huge breakthrough that allowed complex societies to flourish: we specialized. It made no sense for each of us to make all our everyday products and bear the cost of necessary building equipment. So soon enough, we had our neighborhood shoemaker, carpenter, silversmith, and tailor. Fast forward several thousand years and large corporations have created vast new product lines and amplified output. We can now fabricate the same product over and over again millions of times using assembly lines, labor-driven megafactories, human-operated machinery, and more. But today, technological convergence is closing the historical loop. While we used to specialize based on manufacturing ability and availability of tools, these constraints are about to disappear. As 3D printing farms, smart factories, and autonomous co-bots turn concepts into commodities overnight, we are about to witness three major paradigm shifts: 1. Mass Customization: As fixed costs begin to reach variable costs in the production sphere, companies will no longer fabricate millions of the same product or part. Design driven by customer data will allow for tailor-made commodities, and one-off production will be just as cheap. 2. Democratized Invention: Incubator studios and fabrication equipment labs are jumping onto the scene. Flaunting AI-aided robots and swarm 3D printers that work overnight, these urban workshops basically serve as your new testing ground—the physical hands for your digital designs. Forget operational costs, fabrication equipment, prototyping, tooling, and far-flung production plants. Whether in-house or entirely outsourced, design-to-production technologies allow anyone to invent. Read more
Nicholas West Activist Post While most of the news over the last several years has been about the ramp-up of drone use across the planet in everything from the standard form of military planes down to mosquito-sized nanodrones, the U.S. military has also been increasingly focused on robots that can patrol the world’s bodies of water.
In order to provide the flexibility that is often required for the challenging environments and terrain that the military encounters, military robotics researchers continue to look at nature for inspiration. So far, in the air we have been treated with an array that includes the following forms deployed in unison, or potentially swarms:
Beneath the surface, however, only rudimentary attempts have been made such as Project Silent Nemo’s fish drone, or the clunky looking Robocod. Apparently, the U.S. military is preparing to make huge leaps in underwater spybots according to a report by former Marine veteran Todd South writing for ArmyTimes.
Susan Posel Last month, doctors at the University Medical Center (UMC) in Holland have performed the first surgery using a skull made of plastic from a 3D printer. After nearly 24 hours of surgery, the patient was fitted with this printed skull from Anatomics , one of the surgeons said: “We used to create an implant by hand in the operating theater using a kind of cement, but those implants did not have a very good fit. Now we can use 3-D printing to ensure that these components are an exact fit. This has major advantages, not only cosmetically but also because patients often have better brain function compared with the old method.” Fripp Design and Research (FDR) have begun printing an estimated 150 prosthetic eyes to drive down cost. These 3D printed manufactured eyes were made with slight variations in color to give them a more authentic look. Keith Martin co-author of a study into the use and viability if 3D printed eyes: “The loss of nerve cells in the retina is a feature of many blinding eye diseases. The retina is an exquisitely organized structure where the precise arrangement of cells in relation to one another is critical for effective visual function.” Martin continued: “Our study has shown, for the first time, that cells derived from the mature central nervous system, the eye, can be printed using a piezoelectric inkjet printer. Although our results are preliminary and much more work is still required, the aim is to develop this technology for use in retinal repair in the future.” Read more (videos)
While it hasn't said what it will charge consumers
once it gets the printer into production, people who contributed on
Kickstarter could get one for as low as a $199. There are still some
available for a $299 contribution, too.
M3D is using the money to finish the prototype and set up manufacturing in the U.S., it says. The speed at which this company got its funding is amazing.
It's the fifth-fastest Kickstarter project to date to hit a $1 million, according to researcher Statista.
The Micro hit $1 million in 25 hours. That compares to game console
Ouya, which hit $1 million in 8.22 hours and watch computer Pebble’s 27
hours.
Williams is heading up the hugely ambitious project as executive
and scientific director of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute at
the University of Louisville. Throughout his prestigious career
spanning four decades he has focused on researching surgical
devices and bioengineering, and the idea for printing the heart
whole from scratch was inspired by the work of one of the pioneers
in both these fields -- Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh might be best
known for flying solo across the Atlantic and for the Crime of the
Century (when his infant son was kidnapped and murdered) but he
also created a glass perfusion pump with Alexia Carrel that would
keep the human heart alive outside the body, paving the way for
heart surgery. The pair also discussed regenerative medicine in
their book The Culture of Organs.
