Watch: Scientists optimize 3D printer to create new bones


We won’t be surprised if the time comes when we can print just about anything, says Yahoo! News. Even today 3D printing is advanced enough to create toys, a fully-operational car, and even teeth and blood vessels. Now, researchers from the Washington State University have come up with a technique to make new bones using a commercially-available 3D printer they optimized for the study. The repurposed printer sprays a plastic binder over a bed of bone-like calcium phosphate powder with silicon and zinc additives that double the strength of the man-made bone. This results in a sheet half a hair thin, so the process is repeated over and over again, building up layers of the ultra-thin sheet to create the structure. These artificial bones don’t actually replace real ones—they act as a temporary scaffold on which new bone cells grow, eventually dissolving inside the body with no side effects…

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