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Oxford Nanopore Technologies is changing the course of genomics through the development of their small and portable DNA sequencer, the MinION, which makes of nanopore technology.

The handheld, portable tricorder from Star Trek was essentially able to scan and record biological data from almost anything, and it could do it anytime and anywhere. Recent technology has been pulling the device out of science fiction and turning it into reality, but none have come close to getting genetic information with the same portability…except for British company Oxford Nanopore Technologies.

Continue reading “Oxford Scientists Made A Pocket-Sized, Portable DNA Sequencer” »

Disney Research has designed a new 3D printer that utilizes light on photosensitive resin so that models can be printed out as whole objects instead of by the layer, cutting down 3D printing from hours down to just minutes.

Disney Research has patented its design for “a nearly instantaneous” 3D printer that uses light to cure resin selectively to produce an entire model out of a stereolithography (STL) file all at once. Notably, this significantly cuts down printing time. Or at least, it will if it makes it to market.

“Presently, 3D printing is extremely slow and time consuming. For example, it may take several hours to print a single 3D object even if the 3D object is relatively small (e.g., several inches in diameter and four to 12 inches tall),” the patent stated. It continues, “the 3D printing process that uses conventional 3D printers such as an FFF-based 3D printer is limited in its speed by the speed of the mechanism moving the print head to each new position on a print layer.”

Continue reading “Disney’s 3D Printer Produces Models Almost Instantaneously Using Light” »

Impressive; and this is only what we know about the commercial market. Think about what this means to the black market and dark web’s trading sites.

Another question; how good are the forgeries? One that will be even more tricky with 3D. How do you know for sure you’re carrying a Hermes or wearing Chanel glasses or not. Not to mention art, etc.

The 3D printing industry is expected to triple its revenue mainly through the consumer electronics and automotive industries, each of which will contribute 20% of total revenue.

Continue reading “3D printing industry to triple in four years to $21B” »

I do love and believe in the benefits of 3D printing; however, as a technologist and concerned informed citizen I do worry about this technology getting the hands of drug lords, terrorists, and other criminals. With Medical 3D printing; illegal drug manufacturing can change overnight and expanded to new levels of mass production. Also, illegal weapon production can be enhanced as well with 3D printing.

At this point, law enforcement in 1st and 2nd world countries are going to face harder times than they ever have in the recent past and before. 3D Printing and AI are truly going to take an already difficult situation for government and their law enforcement teams extremely tough in the coming 3 to 5 years; and hope they and tech come together to figure out a good go forward plan to ensure right benefits are received and progress not slowed down while keeping everyone safe.

Materialise incorporates more than 25 years of 3D printing experience into a range of software solutions and 3D printing services, which together form the backbone of the 3D printing industry. Materialise’s open and flexible solutions enable players in a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, automotive, aerospace, art and design, and consumer goods, to build innovative 3D printing applications that aim to make the world a better and healthier place.

Continue reading “Materialise CEO on medical 3D Printing” »

Hmmm;

When Under Armor released a new, free fitness app, Record, last January, which uses IBM Watson to send you personalized fitness tips, I was pretty excited about it.

Under Armor owns some of my favorite fitness-tracking apps, especially MyFitnessPal.

Continue reading “IBM’s Watson has been sending me weird but wonderful personalized fitness tips” »

Weird

Nothing says “I love you” like dumping an obscene amount of money on a Groupon so you don’t actually have to spend any real time with your mother.

Expansion of BMI and Bionics has now come to Purdue University.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) — Researchers at Purdue have been working on technology that will help pave the way for the future people who use artificial limbs.

“The point of these research labs is to discover new technologies that we can translate into the real world and make the world a better place,” Purdue Center for Implantable Devices Director Pedro Irazoqui said.

Continue reading “Purdue technology revolutionizes future of artificial limbs” »

(Phys.org)—Animal muscle needs to be strong enough to endure strain; it must also be flexible and elastic; and it is self-healing. Finding a polymer that has all of these properties has proved challenging. However, researchers from Stanford, Nanjing University, UC Riverside, Harvard, and the University of Colorado have reported the synthesis of an elastomer that mimics the properties of animal muscle. Their polymer, is also stable at room temperature and not sensitive to water. Their work appears in Nature Chemistry.

Efforts to create polymers that mimic the properties of biological muscle have come short of being practically useful. Often the bonding involved in making these polymers must be sufficiently strong to serve as actuators, but weak enough for reversible self-healing. Many models, to date, involve hydrogen bonding, but hydrogen bonds are sensitive to water. Li, et al. have, instead, exploited metal-ligand interactions as a way to mimic muscle properties.

The ligand 2,6-pyridinedicarboxamide (pdca)binds to Fe(III) via the pyridyl nitrogen and the nitrogen and oxygen on the carboxamides. Two pdca molecules coordinate to one Fe(III) atom through six coordination sites. Two of the sites are strong bonds (the pyridyl), two sites are “medium” strength bonds (the amides), and two are weak bonds (the carboxyl). Calculations of bond strength show that the strong bonds are similar to covalent bonds, while the weak Fe-O bonds are similar to hydrogen bonding. This multi-bonding structure, as it turns out, provides an excellent framework for making an elastomer.