Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: 3D printing

Attorneys general in 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a federal regulation that could allow blueprints for making guns on 3D printers to be posted on the internet.

New York Attorney General Tish James, who helped lead the coalition of state attorneys general, argued that posting the blueprints would allow anyone to go online and use the downloadable files to create unregistered and untraceable assault-style weapons that could be difficult to detect.

The lawsuit, joined by California, Washington and 17 other states, was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. It is likely to reignite a fierce debate over the use of 3D-printed firearms and is the latest in a series of attempts by state law enforcement officials to block the Trump administration from easing the accessibility of the blueprints.

Read more | >

The coffin that holds the mummified body of the ancient Egyptian Nesyamun, who lived around 1100 B.C., expresses the man’s desire for his voice to live on. Now, 3,000 years after his death, that wish has come true. Using a 3D-printed replica of Nesyamun’s vocal tract and an electronic larynx, researchers in the UK have synthesized the dead man’s voice. Listen to it here:

Read more | >

Within the next 10 years, what we eat and how it’s grown will be fundamentally transformed.

And converging exponential technologies—from materials science to AI-driven digital agriculture—are not slowing down. Today’s breakthroughs will soon allow our planet to boost its food production by nearly 70 percent, using a fraction of the real estate and resources, to feed 9 billion by mid-century.

What you consume, how it was grown, and how it will end up in your stomach will all ride the wave of converging exponentials, revolutionizing the most basic of human needs.

[Note: This article is an excerpt from my next book The Future Is Faster Than You Think, co-authored with Steven Kotler, to be released January 28th, 2020.]

Printing Food

Read more | >

3D bio-printed Lung tissue.

Rice University researcher’s bioprinting method could be scaled up to one day construct an entire organ and allow organs to be made using some of a patient’s own cells to prevent organ rejection. Researcher’s long term goals are to bioprint fully functioning organs. Synthetic organs can extend the waiting period of an average 3.6 years for a real organ.

Read more | >

ROCK HILL, South Carolina and REHOVOT, Israel , January 13, 2020 – Today, 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD) and CollPlant Biotechnologies (NASDAQ: CLGN), announced signing a joint development agreement intended to play a pivotal role in advancing and accelerating breakthroughs in the biomedical industry. The collaboration brings together two industry pioneers—3D Systems, renowned for its 3D printing technologies and healthcare expertise; and CollPlant, the developer of proprietary recombinant human collagen (rhCollagen) BioInk technology currently used for 3D bioprinting of tissues and organs. The two companies plan to jointly develop tissue and scaffold bioprinting processes for third party collaborators.

Read more | >

You might call it a giant leap for 3D bioprinting: Human heart cells have been 3D printed on the International Space Station (ISS) and are making their way back to Earth this week inside a SpaceX capsule. The 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) was developed by Techshot Inc., a commercial operator of microgravity research and manufacturing equipment, in partnership with nScrypt, a manufacturer of industrial 3D bioprinters and electronics printers.

“Our BFF has the potential to transform human healthcare in ways not previously possible,” said Techshot President and CEO John Vellinger.” We’re laying the foundation for an entire industry in space.”

If you’re wondering why they don’t just print the cells here on Earth, the answer is gravity. When attempting to print with soft, easily flowing biomaterials on Earth, the tissues collapse under their own weight, resulting in little more than a puddle, explained Techshot in a press release. “But when these same materials are used in the microgravity environment of space, the 3D-printed structures maintain their shapes.” The bio-ink used in the space station, consequently, did not contain the scaffolding materials or thickening agents normally required to resist the Earth’s gravitational pull.

Read more | >

Space launch startup Orbex has secured a customer for its forthcoming Prime space launch vehicle: TriSept, a provider of launch integration services for both commercial and government customers. TriSept has booked the full capacity of a rideshare mission aboard an Orbex Prime rocket to take off sometime in 2022, which should work schedule-wise, provided Orbex meets its target of flying its initial missions starting next year.

Orbex is leaning on 3D printing to expedite its launch vehicle production process, while also keeping costs low. The U.K.-based company is also in the process of working on final approvals and construction of a new spaceport in Sutherland, located in the Scottish highlands, which, when complete, will be the first mainland space launch facility in Europe.

TriSept, which provides launch management and brokerage services in addition to integration for payloads loaded into the launch vehicle, has been operating in the U.S. space market for years now, and it’ll also be setting up a full-time presence in the U.K. ahead of the Sutherland spaceport’s opening later this year, at Harwell Space Campus in Oxford.

Read more | >

In microbiology, an electroporator is a tool that allows scientists to apply electricity to a cell to temporarily breach its cell wall so you can introduce chemicals, drugs or DNA to the cell. These tools are extremely useful in the lab, but they’re also very expensive. They cost anywhere from roughly $3,000 to $10,000.

Researchers at Georgia Tech just revealed they’ve found a way to create an electroporator that costs next to nothing to make. Their research was just published in the journal PLOS Biology.

These researchers were able to create a version of the electroporator that can generate short bursts of more than 2,000 volts of electricity, which they named the “ElectroPen,” using a crystal from a common lighter, copper-plated wire, heat-shrinking wire insulator and aluminum tape. They then created a case for these components using a 3D printer. They claim you can assemble it within 15 minutes once you have all the pieces.

Read more | >

A team of Brazilian researchers have succesfully bioprinted tiny organoids that perform all of the human liver’s functions, Brazilian news service Agência FAPESP reports — functions including building proteins, storing vitamins and secreting bile.

The researchers had to cultivate and reprogram human stem cells, and then 3D print them in layers to form tissue.

While the “mini-livers” perform the functions of a liver, they’re unfortunately still a far cry from an actual full-scale liver.

Read more | >