The zombie apocalypse isn’t the only factor driving up the demand for dead bodies. More medical students + people living longer = fewer cadavers for scientific research and medical education.
But Monash University in Australia has a solution: 3D-print the body parts.
3D printing has for years been applied to small scale manufacturing processes, tackling anything from creating small-scale industrial parts to assembling entire automobile frames . Most recently, 3D printing has been introduced into the personal consumer market, with affordable printers that allow everyday people to manufacture and replicate mechanical designs of their own.
GE is taking mass production to a lofty new level. The company is pulling 3D printing out of the lab and installing it at the heart of the world’s first factory for printing jet engine fuel nozzles in Auburn, Ala.
The company has spent the last several years developing technologies ranging from data analysis to machine monitoring and preventive maintenance to get 3D printing ready for production prime time. “We need to have systems in place that anticipate a failure before it happens,” says Steve Rengers, principal engineer for additive manufacturing at GE Aviation. “This has not been done before.”
Home Depot is bringing a high-tech twist to its do-it-yourself wares.
The world’s largest home-improvement chain now sells 3D printers from MakerBot in a dozen of its stores across California, New York, and Illinois, MakerBot announced today.
The pilot program, as MakerBot describes it, includes kiosks in each store with trained representatives hosting regular demonstrations to educate shoppers about 3D-printing tech. The companies hope to attract the attention of builders, architects, designers, and general consumers, who can use the printers to produce replacement parts, product prototypes, architectural designs, and more, MakerBot said in a statement.
Hundreds of thousands of people die annually because the demand for organs far exceeds the donor supply. Artificial organs could save those lives — and scientists just made a huge breakthrough in the field by “bio-printing” artificial vascular networks.
Researchers from the University of Sydney, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford have successfully bio-printed blood vessels, offering 3D-printed organs access to nutrients, oxygen, and waste-disposal routes, according to a study published Monday.
ADDITIVE manufacturing (AM), popularly known as 3D printing, is a manufacturing technique that builds objects layerby layer using materials such as polymers,metals, and composites. Figure 1 depicts theoverall AM process. In the early stages of the30 years of AM’s deployment, the technology was largely geared toward prototyping andtooling applications; however, in recent years,AM has found success in end-part production, driven by improved manufacturability.
Alors que l'on entend parler dans les médias des avancées spectaculaires des technologies d'impression en 3D et des applications intéressantes et variées telles la création de vêtements, d'automobiles ou de bâtiments, ces technologies ont été utilisées dans le domaine de la médecine, et pour la première fois à toutes les étapes de la reconstruction faciale d'une personne ayant été défiguré à la suite d'un accident de moto.
Des os artificiels pour la production de masse ont été développés par l'Université de Tokyo et Next-21, une jeune entreprise médicale dans le but de produire des os artificiels transplantables. En utilisant un moule pour injection et une imprimante 3D, plusieurs milliers d'unités peuvent être produites chaque jour.
