Nano 3d printing now possible

[Remus]

http://www.tuwien.ac.at/en/news/news_detail/article/7444/

Printing three dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using “two-photon lithography”. With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have now made a major breakthrough in speeding up this printing technique: The high-precision-3D-printer at TU Vienna is orders of magnitude faster than similar devices. This opens up completely new areas of application, such as in medicine.

Because of the dramatically increased speed, much larger objects can now be created in a given period of time. This makes two-photon-lithography an interesting technique for industry. At the TU Vienna, scientists are now developing bio-compatible resins for medical applications. They can be used to create scaffolds to which living cells can attach themselves facilitating the systematic creation of biological tissues. The 3d printer could also be used to create tailor made construction parts for biomedical technology or nanotechnology.

This is great news. Progress in medical nanotechnology is sure to move along faster with this new breakthrough.

Thoughts?

 

[morgs]

Pretty awesome, technology sure is advancing quickly.

 

[Stigmata]

Gray Death comin'.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

Gray Death comin'.

That was my first thought, but I guess they would have to be able to be able to produce copies of themselves before they can really gooify us.

I, for one, welcome our new microscopic overlords.

 

[dfc05]

This is cool.

Realistically, Gray Death is less of a worry than something like: inhaling/ingesting nano-dust from these things could be harmful. *grumble grumble* But Gray Death is a fun scenario, carry on!

[edit]
I like the scaffolding thing. Reminds me of when I saw a guy present on something similar at a conference, where they could get muscle cells to align better on nano-etched surfaces. But now I'm also reminded of how he went on to talk about using nanomedicine on hemophiliac rats, where they'd cut off the end of the tail and see if they could stop it from bleeding to death or not. They also tried some on a hemophiliac doggie named Benny (ok, he didn't say if the dog had a name but it looked like a Benny to me). At one point he was like "We gave the dog lower doses of nanomedicine but..."
*click for next slide*....
me: "holy crap poor doggie nooooooooooo"
"....but nothing happened."

How that made it through ethics review is beyond me. Where does one even find a hemophiliac dog

 

[Remus]

Sorry, all I was thinking about when I first read this was "medical nanobots", and "Star Trek replicators". However nano-dust could be a serious health problem.

 

[Krynn72]

I'm going to model a knife, and print millions of nano-scale copies of it, and throw them in the faces of people who piss me off. Cause of Death: Millions of stab wounds all throughout the esophagus.

 

[Tyguy]

Can we get the guys who designed this and have them help the people who designed my epson?

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Haha, Tyguy--printers are so shit. I'm glad I don't still work at Best Buy where every other customer was there to complain about a printer and ask which one wouldn't give them problems.