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Category: 3D printing – Page 16

Here’s my latest Opinion piece just out for Newsweek…focusing on cyborg rights.

Over the past half-century, the microprocessor’s capacity has doubled approximately every 18–24 months, and some experts predict that by 2030, machine intelligence could surpass human capabilities. The question then arises: When machines reach human-level intelligence, should they be granted protection and rights? Will they desire and perhaps even demand such rights?

Beyond advancements in microprocessors, we’re witnessing breakthroughs in genetic editing, stem cells, and 3D bioprinting, all which also hold the potential to help create cyborg entities displaying consciousness and intelligence. Notably, Yale University’s experiments stimulating dead pig brains have ignited debates in the animal rights realm, raising questions about the ethical implications of reviving consciousness.

Amid these emerging scientific frontiers, a void in ethical guidelines exists, akin to the Wild West of the impending cyborg age. To address these ethical challenges, a slew of futurist-oriented bills of rights have emerged in the last decade. One of the most prominent is the Transhumanist Bill of Rights, which is in its third revision through crowdsourcing and was published verbatim by Wired in 2018.

These cyborg bills encompass a broad array of protections, including safeguards for thinking robots, gender recognition for virtual intelligences, regulations for genetically engineered sapient beings, and the defense of freedoms for biohackers modifying their bodies. Some also incorporate tech-driven rules to combat environmental threats like asteroids, pandemics, and nuclear war.

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In recent years, roboticists have developed increasingly sophisticated robotic systems designed to mimic both the structure and function of the human body. This work includes robotic hands, grippers that allow robots to grasp objects and manipulate them like humans do while completing everyday tasks.

Ideally, robotic hands should be able to perform highly precise movements, while also being relatively affordable and easy to fabricate. However, most bio-inspired skeleton structures for robotic hands introduced so far have highly intricate designs containing numerous advanced components, which makes them difficult to fabricate on a large scale.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently created a new highly precise that could be easier to upscale, as its components can be crafted using commonly employed techniques, such as 3D printing and laser cutting. Their robotic hand, introduced in a paper published in the journal 2023 IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), is based on a so-called modular structure, meaning that it comprises multiple that can be rearranged to achieve different movements.

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A breakthrough technique developed by University of Oxford researchers could one day provide tailored repairs for those who suffer brain injuries. The researchers have demonstrated for the first time that neural cells can be 3D-printed to mimic the architecture of the cerebral cortex. The results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Brain injuries, including those caused by trauma, stroke, and surgery for tumors, typically result in significant damage to the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the human brain), leading to difficulties in cognition, movement and communication. For example, each year, around 70 million people globally suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), with 5 million of these cases being severe or fatal. Currently, there are no effective treatments for severe brain injuries, leading to serious impacts on quality of life.

Tissue regenerative therapies, especially those in which patients are given implants derived from their own , could be a promising route to treat brain injuries in the future. Up to now, however, there has been no method to ensure that implanted stem cells mimic the architecture of the brain.

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Conventional manufacturing methods such as soft lithography and hot embossing processes can be used to bioengineer microfluidic chips, albeit with limitations, including difficulty in preparing multilayered structures, cost-and labor-consuming fabrication processes as well as low productivity.

Materials scientists have introduced digital light processing as a cost-effective microfabrication approach to 3D print microfluidic chips, although the fabrication resolution of these microchannels are limited to a scale of sub-100 microns.

In a new report published in Microsystems and Nanoengineering, Zhuming Luo and a scientific team in , and chemical engineering in China developed an innovative digital light processing method.

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A group of 12 researchers at Rice University in Houston have used 3D printing to create near-bulletproof material made out of plastic. The novel materials can withstand being shot at by bullets traveling at 5.8 kilometers per second and are highly compressible without falling apart.

Tubulanes are theoretical microscopic structures comprised of crosslinked carbon nanotubes and the researchers sought to test if they would have the same properties when scaled up enough to be 3D printed. It turns out they did.

The researchers proved this by shooting a bullet traveling at 5.8 kilometers per second through two cubes. One cube was made from a solid polymer and the other from a polymer printed with a tubulane structure.

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Nominations are now open for the 3D Printing Industry Awards 2023. Who are the leaders in 3D printing? Find out on November 30th when the winners across twenty categories will be announced during a London-based live awards ceremony.

A team of scientists from the University of Sydney and the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) at Westmead have leveraged 3D photolithographic printing to fabricate functional human tissues that accurately mimic an organ’s architecture.

The researchers utilized bioengineering and cell culture techniques to instruct stem cells derived from blood cells and skin cells to become specialized. These specialized cells can then form organ-like structures.

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A team of bioengineers and biomedical scientists from the University of Sydney and the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) at Westmead have used 3D photolithographic printing to create a complex environment for assembling tissue that mimics the architecture of an organ.

The teams were led by Professor Hala Zreiqat and Dr. Peter Newman at the University of Sydney’s School of Biomedical Engineering and developmental biologist Professor Patrick Tam who leads the CMRI’s Embryology Research Unit. Their paper was published in Advanced Science.

Using bioengineering and cell culture methods, the technique was used to instruct stem cells derived from or to become specialized cells that can assemble into an organ-like structure.

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Researchers have developed an easy-to-build, low-cost 3D nanoprinting system that can create arbitrary 3D structures with extremely fine features. The new 3D nanoprinting technique is precise enough to print metamaterials as well as a variety of optical devices and components such as microlenses, micro-optical devices and metamaterials.

“Our system uses a two-step process to realize 3D printing with accuracy reaching the nanometer level, which is suitable for commercial manufacturing,” said research team leader Cuifang Kuang from the Zhejiang Lab and Zhejiang University, both in China. “It can be used for a variety of applications such as printing micro or nanostructures for studying biological cells or fabricating the specialized optical waveguides used for virtual and augmented reality devices.”

Conventional high-resolution 3D nanoprinting approaches use pulsed femtosecond lasers that cost tens of thousands of dollars. In Optics Letters, Kuang and colleagues describe their new system based on an integrated fiber-coupled continuous-wave diode that is not only inexpensive but also easy to operate.

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UC San Diego.

According to the team, the soft gripper can be put to use right after it comes off the 3D printer and is equipped with built-in gravity and touch sensors, which enable it to pick up, hold, and release objects. “It’s the first time such a gripper can both grip and release. All you have to do is turn the gripper horizontally. This triggers a change in the airflow in the valves, making the two fingers of the gripper release,” said a statement by the university.

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CIPhotos/iStock.

Standard immunotherapy procedures also employ intravenous injections loaded with NK cells to treat cancer but several limitations with this approach prevent it from delivering satisfying results. For instance, many NK cells lose their viability during the therapy and often fail to target the tumors, according to the researchers.

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