3D printing

Already done with safer meds and this is completely dangerous to do with stronger stuff, cause you know, adding different chemicals to act together might have some unwanted results.

Making medicine isn't hard, this on the other hand will allow for easier distribution, allowing places without the infrastructure needed to manufacture pills and other assorted meds to just get the powdered version and then print the pills.

Or at least make it to made on demand instead of manufacturing in bulk and risk void medicine or profit losses from batches that came out with problems.

3D printing revives bronze-age music: "An archaeologist has 3D-printed a replica of an iron-age artifact to revive a rich musical culture in ancient Ireland, uncovering evidence that the artifact may have been a mouthpiece from an iron-age horn and not a spear-butt as previously thought."

Cancer patient receives 3-D printed ribs: "After being diagnosed with a chest wall sarcoma, a 54-year-old Spanish man's surgical team made the decision to remove his sternum and a portion of his rib cage and replace it with an implant. This cancer patient has now received a 3-D printed titanium sternum and rib implant."

Complex nerves were regenerated with a 3D printed guide: "There is a lot of research about nerve regeneration being made and significant progress has been made. A team of researchers from various American universities have worked on a project to develop a guide which will help complex nerves to regrow. They’ve created it by using a 3D printer. Nerve damage is usually permanent and by using advanced 3D printing methods the situation might change. This new study used 3D imaging and printing techniques to create a guide made out of silicone with biochemical cues that help nerves regenerate."

Biolinker: world's first biofilm 3D printer made entirely from K'nex: "A group of nine TU Delft students participating in the upcoming iGem Synthetic Biology Competition have built the first 3D printer capable of creating customizable and reproducible bacterial biofilm, and they’ve made it almost entirely out of the children’s toy K’nex. This development could allow scientists to more effectively study the disease-causing bacteria and devise better methods for removing it. 3Ders.org spoke with Hector Sanguesa Ferrer, one of the students who developed the Biolinker 3D printer, in order to get a better understanding of their goals and how they were accomplished."

4-D technology allows self-folding of complex objects: "Using components made from smart shape-memory materials with slightly different responses to heat, researchers have demonstrated a four-dimensional printing technology that allowed creation of complex self-folding structures."

Nerve regeneration sounds awesome.

This new 3D printer adds stunning laser-cut precision to your DIY craft projects: "Unlike most 3D printers, the Glowforge doesn’t create objects out of any sort of paste or liquid that solidifies. It doesn’t use an additive process at all. Instead, it precisely cuts or embosses materials, which can then be put together to create something.

The Glowforge has a concentrated laser-emitting a beam about the width of a human hair, that can cut through any organic material. The printer itself looks a bit like a large scanner, and it works in a similar fashion: Put a piece of material inside the printer bed, let it scan what type of material it is, and then choose what you want to print. Glowforge’s accompanying app will then give you a countdown on how long your item will take to print."

And another "how come we didn't think of this already" thing. I imagine that a combination 3D-printer/Glowforge will come out soon, using the laser to touch up details on the finished product to help get rid of that slightly blocky feel a lot of 3D-printers have right now.

Bio-inspired robotic finger looks, feels and works like the real thing: "Most robotic parts used to today are rigid, have a limited range of motion and don't really look lifelike. Inspired by both nature and biology, a scientist has designed a novel robotic finger that looks, feels and works like the real thing. Using shape memory alloy, a 3D CAD model of a human finger, a 3D printer and a unique thermal training technique, this robotic finger could ultimately be adapted for use as a prosthetic device, such as on a prosthetic hand."

The technology just keeps maturing. I really would love to see where it goes when cost drops more and more.

These 3D-printed antimicrobial teeth could one day replace fillings: "Nobody likes going to the dentist. No matter how much effort you put into keeping your teeth clean, you could always be doing more – according to your dentist, at least. And they’re quite happy to threaten you with fillings (or worse) if they don’t get what they want.

But the current status quo of dental fillings and implants could face a significant overhaul in the coming years, thanks to the advent of 3D printing, and one new concept tooth in particular.

Researchers in the Netherlands have successfully created a 3D-printed tooth implant made from an antimicrobial resin that kills harmful bacteria in the mouth. In other words, this is a tooth that effectively cleans itself.

The plastic used in the tooth incorporates antimicrobial quaternary ammonium salts that are positively charged, which means they can eliminate negatively charged bacterial membranes."

They are making more and more kinds of things with more and more material types. This is really impressive.

At this rate it won't take long for artificial body components outperform the natural ones.

Deus Ex when?

Unless you're talking about simply outlasting the biological parts, I doubt it. Prosthetics still have to follow the physics of the human body or they'll cause more problems than they're worth.

Change the shape, change the sound: Researchers develop algorithm to 3-D print vibrational sounds: "In creating what looks to be a simple children's musical instrument—a xylophone with keys in the shape of zoo animals—computer scientists at Columbia Engineering, Harvard, and MIT have demonstrated that sound can be controlled by 3D-printing shapes. They designed an optimization algorithm and used computational methods and digital fabrication to control acoustic properties—both sound and vibration—by altering the shape of 2D and 3D objects. Their work—'Computational Design of Metallophone Contact Sounds'—will be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia on November 4 in Kobe, Japan."

Breakthrough Achieved in Ceramics 3D Printing Technology: "Researchers at HRL Laboratories, LLC, have achieved a new milestone in 3D printing technology by demonstrating an approach to additively manufacture ceramics that overcomes the limits of traditional ceramic processing and enables high temperature, high strength ceramic components.

HRL’s Senior Chemical Engineer Zak Eckel and Senior Chemist Dr. Chaoyin Zhou invented a resin formulation that can be 3D printed into parts of virtually any shape and size. The printed resin can then be fired, converting it into a high strength, fully dense ceramic. The resulting material can withstand ultrahigh temperatures in excess of 1700°C and exhibits strength ten times higher than similar materials."

Ooh, that could be very useful. Of course, you still need the damn kiln. That limits the utility a bit. It's not like you can just use a kitchen oven.

This $99 device transforms any smartphone into a 3D printer: "We keep hearing about the awesome applications of 3D printers, such as home-made braces (don’t actually try at home), toys, Terminator-style creations that rise from molten plastic baths, and, you know, human ears, but despite the technology being cheaper and more accessible than ever, you probably don’t have too many people in your life (if any) who actually use a 3D printer for real.

Well, if devices like the OLO are anything to go on, that could all be about to change. The OLO is a $99 gadget that lets you turn any smartphone into a 3D printer, and uses the light from the touchscreen to process your plastic creations."

Very very strange. Not terribly practical, imo, as in it can't make a whole lot of things. It feels more gimmicky than anything else.

Gimmicky things can make a lot of money. I could see this being sold like one of those "make your own jewelry" kits they sell for preteen girls.

How long until we should start investing in 3D printing companies? I'd imagine at some point the iron is going to be hot enough to strike

Now.

Now? I thought 3D printing was not necessarily going to yield good stocks. Good things, but not great stocks.

Investing in industrial scale 3D printers for construction or consumer goods probably will. You can even invest them as a construction contractor since having one allows you to either make the parts needed to assemble a house on the spot or 3D an entire house.

Even if you think small you could do a lot of things by opening a business entirely focused on on-time manufacturing custom made goods. Including one where you have a high precision and high quality 3D printer and your customers pay a fee to have their designs printed.

You could get a decent amount of stocks by claiming that by doing so you will attract a lot of profits by simply delivering your goods and services cheaper and faster than anyone else.

edited 12th Jul '16 3:48:45 PM by AngelusNox

Quick question: does it legally count as counterfeiting if you scan, touch up and re-print a 1960 vintage Deutsche Mark coin with an SLM machine?

(purely hypothetical and not something I'm currently doing)