go to stufftoblowyourmind.com to enter thescience awards contest and a chance to win a $10,000 college sponsorship, sponsored bybasf, the chemical company. you know what's better than a 3d-printed pizza?nothing. nothing in the world is better than a 3d-printed pizza. sorry everyone else. justpack up and go home. hey guys, tara here for dnews - with a storythat is sure to warm the cockles of even the
3d printing in the medical industry, coldest, deadest heart. a group of engineering students from an illinoishigh school used a 3d printer to make a prosthetic hand for a 9-year-old girl who was born withoutfingers on her left hand. a regular prosthetic hand costs up to $50,000- which is an insane amount of money, so the
girl's father approached the school, askingfor help. students found a 3d printout online that canbe used to create fingers, and then pieced the hand together, adding flexible cords thatallow it to bend and grab items. the girl now has a brand new functioning hand - andthe total cost? $5. damn i love a good bargain. of course this isn't the first time a 3d printerhas created working body parts - and it's actually more common than you think! last month, a group of doctors in hollandperformed the first successful skull transplant - using a plastic, 3d printed skull. the patientwho received it, suffered from a condition that thickens the bone structure - causingheadaches, blindness, and eventually death.
the procedures took 23 hours in total - andthe woman has now regained her sight, and returned to work. absolutely incredible. and here's a weird one: 3d printed eyes. acompany called fripp design and research in the uk prints up to 150 prosthetic eyes everyhour. and while they obviously don't work the same as a real eye - they are significantlycheaper and more readily available than standard glass eyes. the same company also produces an array ofother facial prosthetics, including noses and ears. they scan a patient's face, andthen 3d print a perfect replica using starch powder, silicone, and pigments. not only isit cheaper than leading prosthetics - it's
more patient-friendly, because it doesn'trequire an invasive facial mold to create. the wake forest institute for regenerativemedicine is another place that's leading the way in 3d prosthetics. they recently createda bioprinted kidney - by depositing kidneys cells cultivated from a biopsy, into a biodegradableshell. the kidney is then incubated for a period, and transplanted into a patient - soas the functional tissue grows, the shell slowly degrades. wake forest has also paved the way for syntheticskin grafts. and they're currently developing a printer that could print skin straight ontothe wounds of burn victims. first they use a scanner to determine the size and depthof the wound. and then an ink, made of enzymes
and collagen, is layered in between tissueand skin cells - the same way it would be in healthy skin. their goal, is to have portableskin graft machines ready within 5 years, so they can use it on soldiers who have beenburned in war. it may be another decade or so until we see3d-printed kidneys and other major internal organs put into humans, but - let me reiteratejust how incredible the potential for this is. transplant waiting lists would be a thingof the past! lose your arm in a boating accident? it's cool bro, i'll just print another one!and better than any of that - it brings us
one step closer, to being cyborgs. if you can think of any use for 3d printersthat's cooler than what i just listed, i wanna
know about it. leave your comments down below- and for more episodes of dnews, subscribe here.
