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You know what's better than a 3D-printed pizza?
Nothing.
Nothing in the world is better than a 3D-printed
pizza.
Sorry everyone else.
Just pack up and go home.
Hey guys, Tara here for Dnews - with a story
that is sure to warm the cockles of even the
coldest, deadest heart.
A group of engineering students from an Illinois
high school used a 3D printer to make a prosthetic
hand for a 9-year-old girl who was born without
fingers on her left hand.
A regular prosthetic hand costs up to $50,000
- which is an insane amount of money, so the
girl's father approached the school, asking
for help.
Students found a 3D printout online that can
be used to create fingers, and then pieced
the hand together, adding flexible cords that
allow it to bend and grab items.
The girl now has a brand new functioning hand
- and the total cost?
$5.
Damn I love a good bargain.
Of course this isn't the first time a 3D printer
has created working body parts - and it's
actually more common than you think!
Last month, a group of doctors in Holland
performed the first successful skull transplant
- using a plastic, 3D printed skull.
The patient who received it, suffered from
a condition that thickens the bone structure
- causing headaches, blindness, and eventually
death.
The procedures took 23 hours in total - and
the woman has now regained her sight, and
returned to work.
Absolutely incredible.
And here's a weird one: 3D printed eyes.
A company called Fripp Design and Research
in the UK prints up to 150 prosthetic eyes
every hour.
And while they obviously don't work the same
as a real eye - they are significantly cheaper
and more readily available than standard glass
eyes.
The same company also produces an array of
other facial prosthetics, including noses
and ears.
They scan a patient's face, and then 3D print
a perfect replica using starch powder, silicone,
and pigments.
Not only is it cheaper than leading prosthetics
- it's more patient-friendly, because it doesn't
require an invasive facial mold to create.
The Wake Forest Institute For Regenerative
Medicine is another place that's leading the
way in 3D prosthetics.
They recently created a bioprinted kidney
- by depositing kidneys cells cultivated from
a biopsy, into a biodegradable shell.
The kidney is then incubated for a period,
and transplanted into a patient - so as the
functional tissue grows, the shell slowly
degrades.
Wake Forest has also paved the way for synthetic
skin grafts.
And they're currently developing a printer
that could print skin straight onto the wounds
of burn victims.
First they use a scanner to determine the
size and depth of the wound.
And then an ink, made of enzymes and collagen,
is layered in between tissue and skin cells
- the same way it would be in healthy skin.
Their goal, is to have portable skin graft
machines ready within 5 years, so they can
use it on soldiers who have been burned in
war.
It may be another decade or so until we see
3D-printed kidneys and other major internal
organs put into humans, BUT - let me reiterate
just how incredible the potential for this
is.
Transplant waiting lists would be a thing
of the past!
Lose your arm in a boating accident?
It's cool bro, I'll just print another one!
And better than any of that - it brings us
one step closer, to being cyborgs.
If you can think of any use for 3D printers
that's cooler than what I just listed, I wanna
know about it.
Leave your comments down below - and for more
episodes of Dnews, subscribe here.
