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Using a 3D printer, scientists have made an elastic membrane that closely mimics the outer layer of the heart's wall. The new membrane, which was described Tuesday (Feb. 25) in the journal Nature Communications, contains tiny sensors that can track the heart's temperature, pH and level of strain. The device could one day be used to treat patients with rhythm disorders in the lower chambers of the heart, as well as the rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation, the researchers said. Heart rhythm irregularities are a common problem, with one of the most well-known forms, atrial fibrillation, affecting 3 million to 5...

The 3D printers are coming. And fast. The only debate is over how fast. Velocity matters for stock pickers following the small world of pure-play public 3D printing companies. It is also relevant for business analysts and, perhaps surprisingly, for energy forecasters. 3D printers will — as many have observed sometimes a tad too breathlessly — disrupt a lot of businesses. They will enable and make more profitable many others, while also creating entirely new classes of businesses. The 3D printing ecosystem will as well accelerate the new trend of rising foreign direct investment into the United States. And 3D...

Back when 3D printing was just kicking off, there was much talk of a future where people could download new furniture designs, print them, and furnish their living rooms with new pieces whenever they pleased. But despite the fact that 3D printing your own furniture is totally possible now, it hasn’t really caught on for one simple reason – nobody wants to fill their house with a bunch of snap-together plastic furniture. But the dream of printing your own furnishings isn’t dead yet. A fledgling company by the name of 4 AXYZ has developed a process that allows you...

Harvard scientists have developed a new bioprinting method that can create intricately patterned 3-D tissue constructs with multiple types of cells and tiny blood vessels. The work is a major step toward creating human tissue constructs realistic enough to test drug safety and effectiveness, researchers said. The method will also help bring closer the building of fully functional replacements for injured or diseased tissue that can be designed from CAT scan data using computer-aided design (CAD), printed in 3D at the push of a button. "This is the foundational step toward creating 3D living tissue," said Jennifer Lewis, senior author...

Technology to bring 3D printing closer to the mass market is accelerating, though most 3D printed items tend to be rather small in size. To help demonstrate the effectiveness of printing larger items, BigRep, a company founded in 2014, opens the door to printing items such as furniture. The device is launching worldwide at large trade shows, and begins shipping in two months, with a $39,000 MSRP.The BigRep One can print full-scale objects in sizes up to 45x39x47 inches, and has the ability to print plastics, nylons, Laywood (wood fibers mixed with polymers), and Laybrick (something similar to sandstone-type of...

Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity paired with a machine that can print almost anything. It’s been over 30 years since Chuck Hull invented the first 3D printer in 1983. Ever since then, the idea of machine-printing objects from scratch has gone from fiction to reality, opening up new opportunities for every field from science to art. 3D printing may not be quite there yet, but in three decades the technology has progressed leaps and bounds in terms of the scope and utility of 3D-printed objects. Surprise, surprise: It's not just gimmicks and toys. It’s easy to be skeptical...

Using precision lasers, a Nanoscribe 3D printer can print models of the Empire State building in a space the width of a human hair. Watching the machine build through the “lens” of an electron microscope is otherworldly—but the printer’s potential runs beyond microscale model making. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, led by Jens Bauer, believe such 3D printers may help craft a new generation of materials lighter than water and strong as steel. Today, the sturdiest materials tend to be the densest (like metals), and the least dense materials tend to be the weakest (like foams). Ideally, materials...

Bioprinting, or the process of creating human tissues through 3D printers, is a highly contested area of technological innovation. Theoretically it could save the economy billions on a global scale, whilst boosting weak or war-torn countries' access to more affordable health care and provision, whether producing prosthetic limbs or highly customised fully-working human organs. From a technological perspective, the rise and development of 3D printing and its capabilities will play an undeniable part in our future lives. But how does the process work? UK-based company PrinterInks has teamed up with US startup Organovo, a company specialised in designing and printing...

Having lunch with the 14th Most Dangerous Person in the World is less scary than you might think. Unless you happen to have a morbid fear of hipster beards, Cody Wilson, a good-looking 26-year-old who blends with the crowd in the east London cafe where I meet him, doesn't immediately strike fear into the heart. He chats away with the waitress, discussing the possibilities before ordering east London's hippest sandwich – the pulled pork burger – and has an easygoing, amiable manner. He is, frankly, about as threatening as a barista. A barista who has happened on a spectacular method...

If you think 3D printing plastic is advancing quickly, take a look at bioprinting, a technology that uses inkjet-style printers to create living tissue. Organovo already plans to commercialize its 3D-printed liver tissue this year, and the National Institute of Health recently took an interest in 3D-printed eye tissue. But squeezing living cells through an inkjet printer kills many of them. Houston Methodist Research Institute researchers say they have developed a better way: a technology called Block-Cell-Printing (BloC-Printing) that leaves nearly 100 percent of the cells alive, instead of 50 to 80 percent. They published their work Monday in Proceedings...

Nanoparticle inks can turn your existing 2D printer into a circuit board production line – and the possibilities for 3D printers are mind-boggling. Printing foldable mobile phones on a sheet of paper from a normal 2D printer is just a decade away, according to Jürgen Steimle, head of the Embodied Interaction Group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany. Steimle and his colleagues took a step towards this in 2013, when they used a standard printer loaded with nanoparticle ink to print a paper circuit that works even after the sheet is torn. In the past couple...

China is investing heavily in 3D printing, just like those in the U.S. and Europe. In June, China announced a gigantic 3D printer, which they claimed was the world’s largest at the time, with a 1.8 meter build diameter. Basically the thing could print out a nice sized bathroom vanity if you wanted it to. Southern Fan Co. (As Translated from Chinese), is completing a printer this month which will be able to print out metal objects approximately 6 meters, or 18 feet in diameter and 10 meters long (33 feet). The metal parts can weigh up to 300 tons....

A low, mechanical thrum creates an ever-present soundtrack at Type A Machines, a 3D-printing company on the third floor of San Francisco's TechShop, in SOMA. Big and drafty and sunlit with exposed pipes on the ceiling, it's a modern iteration of an old textile mill. On the ground floor, flannel-shirted workers sit hunched over welding equipment, sweat bubbling over their plastic goggles. Upstairs, their colleagues peck at laptops, designing blueprints for new objects with all the exacting detail of a draftsman using pen and paper. In a far corner, Type A's line of Series 1 2013 printers sits arranged in...

Case Western Reserve University, in alliance with the Lincoln Electric Co. and a group of business partners, has been selected to lead a project to convert the laser hot-wire welding process developed by Lincoln Electric into a high-output, three-dimensional additive manufacturing process. The $700,000 project is among 15 recently announced by America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown, which is spearheading next-generation manufacturing technologies based on 3-D printing. The projects are winners of America Makes' second round of funding. Researchers and business partners developing the new 3-D process aim for a quick conversion. "The goal is to...

Everyone seems to have a different idea about what will spark the next industrial revolution: 3D printing, more sophisticated robots and even renewable energy have all been put forward as potential progenitors. The German vision of the future of manufacturing, as laid out at a talk this week at the Royal Academy of Engineering, is somewhat more complicated and extensive. Proposed by a government-backed working group of Germany’s top industrial companies, “Industry 4.0” envisages a world of self-organising smart factories where manufacturing machines talk to each other, to their products and to other links in the supply chain to make...

When, if ever, will we eat lab-grown meat? It's still early enough in 2014 for predictions of the year to come, and late 2013 saw the unveiling of the world's first hamburger made of laboratory-cultured animal protein, leading to a frenzy of journalistic coverage and even one short article that collected past predictions for when "cultured meat" might reach supermarket shelves. ("Cultured meat" is the term of preference among the substance's promoters, over "schmeat," "lab meat," and of course "frankenmeat.") Those skeptical about the viability of meat grown in laboratories can look back with satisfaction at a long history of...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)I have seen the future — your future if you’re rich enough or brave enough to embrace it — and I have to tell you, it’s weird. Imagine this: it’s 2025 and you’re getting on, feeling your knees a bit. You’re bending over one day to pick up junk mail when you feel a terrible pain in your chest. You call 999 and within the hour (in this ideal world) you’re in hospital under the knife. But this isn’t heart surgery you’re having, it’s bottom surgery: the doctor’s taking a chunk of fat from your bum. Have they made a...

Because of rapid advances in 3D printing, the world is plunging towards ethical and political controversy fuelled by the use of the technology to generate living human tissue and organs. Bioprinting will progress far faster than general understanding of the ramifications of the technology, according to analyst firm Gartner. Last year researchers at Cornell University demonstrated an ear printer, and San Diego firm Organovo unveiled work on printing human livers, with scientists at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland developing a way to print blobs of human embryonic stem cells. Gartner research director Pete Basiliere said bioprinting initiatives are well-intentioned but raise...

Gregory Mark co-owns Aeromotions, which builds computer-controlled racecar wings. To make those wings both strong and lightweight, they use carbon fiber. No surprise there—it's the material of choice for many advanced motorsports parts. The problem is that making custom racecar parts out of carbon fiber is daunting. The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand. To improve the process, Mark looked to 3D printing. But nothing on the market could print the material, and no available materials could print pieces strong enough for his purposes. So Mark devised his...

The list of winners of Product of the Year 2014 has revealed that the most popular futuristic product for consumers are 3D printers, with half wanting to try out the technology. Findings showed that 47% of people are interested in using a 3D printer, while 37% believe it is the next big product of the future. Two-thirds of people said they would be willing to pay more for the added convenience of 3D printers and personalised features. The Product of the Year also threw up another unexpected future invention people are hoping to see over the coming years. A fifth...