3D Printer – Page 24

3D Printer, Economy, Employment, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

The end of work: The consequences of an economic singularity

February 20, 2019

Today, we are no longer confined to what nature or natural intelligence must offer. From the steam engine to electricity and digital transformations to artificial intelligence, molecular manufacturing and bioengineering, each new transformative innovation has brought us a new (man-made) way of doing things in ways that nature did not provide for.

As new ways of manufacturing and production are emerging, they are taking away an ever-increasing number of tasks and roles previously performed by a human labor force. Furthermore, the automation, self-improvement, self-replication and distributed nature of the manufacturing processes are producing products and goods at a minimal cost. As a result, each of these existing and emerging technologies, individually and collectively, will likely one day eliminate the need for human labor for production of goods and services—shaking the very fundamentals of economics as we know today.

Continue reading… “The end of work: The consequences of an economic singularity”

3D Printer, Engineering, Space, Space Flight

Take a look at the world’s largest 3D-printed rocket engine

February 15, 2019

3D printing in one piece avoids the weaknesses of welding.

It’s a long way from taking on Blue Origin or SpaceX, but UK startup Orbex is confident enough to show off its Prime Rocket’s second stage. Inside the engineering prototype’s shell is what it claims is the “world’s largest” 3D printed rocket engine, which is also designed to run on bio-propane, a renewable fuel source. The rocket itself is made of a carbon fiber and aluminum composite that’s supposed to be 30 percent lighter than any other vehicle in its category.

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3D Printer, Biotech, Medical Breakthrough

Bio-Printers are churning out living fixes to broken spines

January 25, 2019

A new study showed that 3D-printing a spinal cord implant, shown here, restored movement in injured rats.UCSD JACOBS SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

FOR DOCTORS AND medical researchers repairing the human body, a 3D printer has become almost as valuable as an x-ray machine, microscope, or a sharp scalpel. Bioengineers are using 3D printers to make more durable hip and knee joints, prosthetic limbs and, recently, to produce living tissue attached to a scaffold of printed material.

Researchers say that bio-printed tissue can be used to test the effects of drug treatments, for example, with an eventual goal of printing entire organs that can be grown and then transplanted into a patient. The latest step toward 3D-printed replacements of failed human parts comes from a team at UC San Diego. It has bio-printed a section of spinal cord that can be custom-fit into a patient’s injury.

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3D Printer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough

How 3D technology is revolutionizing face transplants

January 23, 2019

From modeling to printing, it’s all about seeing inside someone’s head.

Face transplants are an ideal setting to fuse medicine with the growing world of 3D printing and imaging. The left image is a rendering of what face transplant recipient Cameron Underwood’s face looked like before his surgery; the right is a planned rendering based on the donor’s face.

Cameron Underwood received a new face on January 6, 2018. By the time his surgery ended, everything below Underwood’s eye sockets had been replaced with the face of organ donor William Fisher.

A face transplant is exactly what it sounds like—replacing the disfigured face of one person with the whole, undamaged face of a very recently deceased person. Eduardo Rodriguez, plastic surgeon and face transplant specialist at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York who performed surgery on Underwood, insists this surgery is a way to give these patients “a second chance at life.” Without a new face, patients like Underwood have great difficulty speaking, swallowing, eating, expressing themselves, as well as all the other things we do with our faces that we never think twice about.

A physician in France performed the first successful face transplant surgery in 2005. Since then, only 40 other such surgeries have been done around the world. Rodriguez has performed three of those surgeries, including Underwood’s.

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3D Printer, Analysis, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Software Development

Engineers can now reverse-engineer 3D models

January 12, 2019

A system that uses a technique called constructive solid geometry (CSG) is allowing MIT researchers to deconstruct objects and turn them into 3D models, thereby allowing them to reverse-engineer complex things.

The system appeared in a paper entitled “InverseCSG: Automatic Conversion of 3D Models to CSG Trees” by Tao Du, Jeevana Priya Inala, Yewen Pu, Andrew Spielberg, Adriana Schulz, Daniela Rus, Armando Solar-Lezama, and Wojciech Matusik.

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3D Printer, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Medicine

Patient receives 3D-printed rib implant in breakthrough procedure

January 11, 2019

3D printing made some big advances in the medical domain last year, and it seems like that trend isn’t going to slow down any time soon. Proving that point is an impressive procedure recently carried out in Bulgaria, in which a patient received one of the first 3D-printed ribs as part of a potentially lifesaving operation. It demonstrated a new approach to create rib implants, using a process called fused deposition modeling (FDM), which is cheaper in both machine and material costs than other similar attempts.

“[The] patient, Ivaylo Josifov, was diagnosed with a rib deformation,” Mateusz Sidorowicz, director of marketing at 3DGence, the company which made the 3D printer, told Digital Trends. “The doctors were concerned that the deformity may progress, and decided to replace the rib with an implant. Unfortunately, traditional implants — made from titanium, for example — are very expensive. Also, the titanium itself is not a perfect material for replacing ribs.”

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3D Printer, Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Scientists find a way to 3D print one pill for all that ails you

January 9, 2019

Multiple medications with different release times—all in one pill.

Last year, the FDA approved a 3D-printed pill for the first time. And now, researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a method to make 3D printing medicine even better. NUS Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Assistant Professor Soh Siow Ling, with the help of PhD student Sun Yajuan, created a cheap, simple way to prompt a 3D printer to create multiple medications with different release formulas—all in one pill.

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3D Printer, Housing, NASA, Science & Technology News, Space Flight

6 of the most amazing things that were 3D-printed in 2018

December 29, 2018

From bridges to cars, 3D printing proved this year that it’s still relevant and exciting.

The hype may have died down a little, but 3D printing was still creating waves in manufacturing in 2018. On the important-but-boring side, manufacturing companies are using the tech for things like weight reduction and cost savings. More interestingly, architects carried out a number of experiments that pushed the artistic limits of what 3D printing can do.

Here are some of the standout achievements and creations from 2018:

Continue reading… “6 of the most amazing things that were 3D-printed in 2018”

2019 Predictions, 3D Printer, Artificial Intelligence, Future, Science & Technology News

Deloitte’s 9 tech predictions for 2019

December 20, 2018

Everybody makes a list of 2019 predictions, but the folks at Deloitte have numbers behind theirs. As one of the world’s biggest accounting and financial services firms, Deloitte is able to confidently predict that, for example, the smart speaker market will generate $7 billion in revenues in 2019.

Below is Deloitte’s 18th annual list of predictions for your enjoyment.

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3D Printer, Architecture, Green Friendly, Housing

High-tech hemp homes: Australia’s 3D-printed green building revolution

December 18, 2018

A Dutch town will host the world’s first liveable 3D-homes, with residents set to move in next year. Photo: Project Milestone

From 3D-printed buildings to hemp-panelled homes, a hi-tech green building revolution is under way across the globe.

An Australian company has revealed plans to roll out 3D-printed hemp homes, thanks to pioneering technology that could transform residential and commercial building.

Positioning itself at the forefront of Australia’s growing hemp industry, Perth-based bio-technology company Mirreco is pursuing a vision of a world where “the dire consequences of global-warming have been averted because we have seized the opportunity to act now”.

Continue reading… “High-tech hemp homes: Australia’s 3D-printed green building revolution”

3D Printer, Engineering, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

MIT team develops 3D printer that’s 10x faster than comparable 3D printers

December 16, 2018

Professors Jamison Go and John Hart of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Mechanosynthesis Group have developed new hardware that enables what they call FastFFF (fast fused filament fabrication). And it’s fast, see for yourself.

Desktop 3D printers are fantastic at creating high-quality and complex parts on demand, but their greatest weakness has always been speed. They can only print one object at a time, one thin layer at a time. And there are several speed-limiting factors to FDM/FFF 3D printers, with the main four being: the amount of force that can be applied to the filament as it’s pushed through the nozzle, how quickly heat can be transferred to the filament to melt it, how fast the printhead can move around the build area, and the rate that the material solidifies after it’s extruded because it needs to support the next layer.

Continue reading… “MIT team develops 3D printer that’s 10x faster than comparable 3D printers”

3D Printer, Agriculture, Food, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Novameat’s 3D-printed ‘steak’ looks gross, but could it save the planet?

November 27, 2018

Does your mouth water at the prospect of a nice juicy steak? How about a nice juicy 3D-printed steak, made using a paste composed of vegetable-based materials like rice, peas, and seaweed? That’s what a new Spanish startup, Novameat, is working hard to bring to market.

“I developed the first 3D-printed plant-based beefsteak while I was working as a postdoc researcher in tissue engineering, and assistant professor at the UPC university in Barcelona,” founder Giuseppe Scionti told Digital Trends. “I was lucky … because this city is a great hub for both 3D printing companies and world-renowned restaurants.”

Continue reading… “Novameat’s 3D-printed ‘steak’ looks gross, but could it save the planet?”