Produce Organs...From Printer

Hmmmm.... by nano2nd · 2003-01-22 23:05 · Score: 4, Funny

So how long till I can print out a nice fillet steak?..........

Re:Hmmmm.... by websaber · 2003-01-23 09:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

Judaic scholars have been discussing that a lot longer than you might think, and the consensus that I know of is that it would be considered kosher. If my memory serves me correctly 2000 years ago (good memory huh...) the Talmud was already asking the kosher status of an animal that was born by caesarian section which would have the same status as a printed piece of meat as it would be considered made by man. However the only real answer will come when they actually print one.

--
"A good friend will bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, 'damn....that was fun!'"

print organs? NO! print organisms! by grimani · 2003-01-22 23:06 · Score: 4, Funny

i'd print myself a girl.

And in other news by gowen · 2003-01-22 23:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Scientists today reported methods on how to store small quantities of ink in feathers (that they have named "quills") in order for writing. They claim this is the first step to mass producing multi-colour documents and distributing them over the internet.

i.e. a nice first step, but -- to be frank -- an unfeasible distance from their lofty goals.

--
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.

Re:And in other news by Negatyfus · 2003-01-23 00:27 · Score: 5, Funny

4-Winged Dinosaur Fossil Printed

In an astounding accomplishment this week, scientists from China have printed the fossilized remains of a 4-winged dinosaur on a standard desktop printer. This achievement could go a long way in providing more evidence that, in fact, Creation was done on an old 24-pin matrix printer, which could explain away the various inconsistencies in the end result we see today.

"There may have been driver problems in the first test-prints of Creation, bugs in the software that make the printer work, that God may have overlooked," says evolutionary theorist Dr. Winston Guystone. "Of course this is met with a lot of opposition, prominently from the religious quarters, who strongly believe God is omnipotent."

Rev. Dr. Edward Martins of the Baptist Church of Redemption, responds, "It is absolutely ludicrous to think that the universe was printed from some divine desktop printer. And even so, where does the paper come from?" Lately the Protestant and Catholic church have been in an uproar when it came out that the Holy Bible was, in fact, based on an ancient Roman website that was run from a recently discovered modified Commodore 64 server with a custom network device.
Re:And in other news by whimdot · 2003-01-23 01:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

I see the bbc are reporting that biometrics are gaining ground for user authorisation. Who will be first to print a retinal pattern?

imagine the spam by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 23:10 · Score: 4, Funny

"refill toner cartridges! Print yourself a new 12 inch organ, guaranteed!"

a new paradox is born by circletimessquare · 2003-01-22 23:11 · Score: 3, Funny

and ye, a new paradoxical quandry is born:

which came first, the printer repairman or the printer?

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it

Re:The ink by mini_me · 2003-01-22 23:12 · Score: 3, Informative

Opps, messed up the link.

And you thought... by Docta · 2003-01-22 23:16 · Score: 4, Funny

You thought that printer cartridges were expensive beforehand! Imagine what they'll be like with black, 3 colours and a "cell" cartridge.

Wow, The Onion was right by icantblvitsnotbutter · 2003-01-22 23:17 · Score: 5, Funny

You just know technology's getting scary when The Onion is accurate (oddly, this same link was used recently in another Slashdot post).

Mexican Scientists Perfect Copying

It may also be possible, some medical practitioners believe, to use copies to save lives on the operating table. A copy could be made of a kidney dialysis patient's good kidney, and then the copy could be inserted into the patient's body cavity, replacing the bad kidney.

Eeeeeeuuuuu! by Inflatable+Hippo · 2003-01-22 23:17 · Score: 3, Funny

> Apparently the work is a first step towards printing complex tissues or even entire organs.

Imagine clearing out the jams in your flesh jet...

Re:Eeeeeeuuuuu! by laughing_badger · 2003-01-22 23:51 · Score: 2, Funny

I suspect that most Slashdotters have plenty of experience at manually clearing their flesh jet...

--
Help children born unable to swallow - www.tofs.org.uk

hmm... by Kalewa · 2003-01-22 23:19 · Score: 2, Funny

Combine this with that electronic device printing and we could whip up an army of Epson cyborgs in no time!

Skin grafts.... by oliverthered · 2003-01-22 23:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

I didn't think most tissue would be 'printable' it's to complex. so don't expect a new set of lungs any time soon.

The process may be usefull for skin cultures or other simple single cell types. I beleive there are already other quite efficient techniques out there though.

--
thank God the internet isn't a human right.

Re:Skin grafts.... by Christopher+Thomas · 2003-01-23 14:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

I didn't think most tissue would be 'printable' it's to complex. so don't expect a new set of lungs any time soon.

I'm not sure this argument holds. Any 2400-dpi printer that's actually 2400-dpi can place dots accurately enough to place cells, so placement's not an issue for a specialty printer. You can keep data requirements sane by algorithmically generating the tissue structure map as you print. We already both seem to be assuming that you can store enough types of cell; the limit to the number of inks you can store is a cost/engineering problem, not a strong limit.

In summary, I don't think complexity is a serious roadblock.

The main limits I see are more fundamental. Cells are flexible enough not to deposit easily into well-controlled 3D structures even if you do have a way to form connective tissue on contact (which we don't), and you're going to have an interesting time printing open spaces like blood vessels (water doesn't like staying in one place at *all*). I'm undoubtedly overlooking many other important problems in addition to these.

Still, it's a neat concept.

Problems... by vjmurphy · 2003-01-22 23:20 · Score: 2, Funny

Ahggg! Paper Jam! Literally!

Sorry, Mrs. Smith, we were attempting to give Timmy a new spleen, but he apparently slipped in a few pages from his Winnie-the-Pooh coloring book...

--
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice

Mac users rejoice! by ScottForbes · 2003-01-22 23:20 · Score: 2, Funny

Scientists expect this technology to bring the dogcow back from the brink of extinction.

Moof!

DMCA already called into action... by MosesJones · 2003-01-22 23:22 · Score: 5, Funny

In a land-mark case Lexmark are invoking the DMCA against the pregnant women.

"We produce organs, so apparently do pregnant women, clearly they have reverse engineered our technology in breach of the DMCA. As normally with copyright violations this is biggest in China, India and other countries with large populations"

Pregnant Women have filed a class-action countersuit claiming prior art, but are not expect to win as they didn't give any cash to elected officials.

Senator Joe Bung(R) said "I know my mother doesn't agree with this case but the fact is she broke the DMCA when she had me, I'd much of prefered to have been printed out and it would have been easier for ma, women must realise that this is a natural thing and we must let the market decide."

--
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi

Re:DMCA already called into action... by fr2asbury · 2003-01-23 01:38 · Score: 3, Funny

I thought something very similar when I read this, but I was thinking Lexmark was going to sue the scientists for using modified cartridges in the printers.

Jonathan

Re:print organs? NO! print organisms! by Silicone · 2003-01-22 23:23 · Score: 2, Funny

humanity weeps...

Re:print organs? NO! print organisms! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-22 23:38 · Score: 4, Funny

The worst is, I misread and thought for a second you wanted to print orgasms....

Re:5th element by datadictator · 2003-01-22 23:41 · Score: 2, Informative

You mean lilo ...and no.
Lilo was grown from genes using cell duplication.

Does bring up an interesting movie idea...drumroll please

Lexmark Park
Atack of the copied copywrite laywers.

--
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"

I just copyrighted the .rpn file for a heart. by Memetic · 2003-01-22 23:54 · Score: 2

So if you want a new one that'll be $250k for a single user licence.

Licence agreement:

No licence transplants allowed.

Separate work and recreational licence required.

This design is not tested for mission critical applications, any usage in mission critiacal applications is at the licencee's own risk.

Insightful message... by heytal · 2003-01-23 00:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why is it that all the responses to this story are Funny and there are no Insightful or Interesting responses ?

Does this show the /. mentality ?

Re:Insightful message... by datadictator · 2003-01-23 02:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Does this show the /. mentality ? Yip.

On a serious note, this is still too novel for anybody to think about it insightfully (at least in the way /.'ers define the term). I mean sci-fi gave us years of phylosophy on cloning to think about before we had to deal with the concept for real.

I sure aint never read about the human printer in a sci-fi story. Truth is also we know that it's early days yet. They would need something with a much greater capacity for layered printing before this is more than a science novelty.

Frankly the concept just lends itself very well to humour so we joke. Insightfull and Interesting posts require you to have shown insight into the ramifications of the tech first - and frankly there just wasn't time.
How many insightful comments on September 11 did you hear before September 12 (allthough of course not a lot of people joked about that one, but nobody was being insightful either)...come to think of it, the only insightfull response to 9/11 I have read so far was on the EFF website.

More's the pity that everything I have seen on a .gov website would (if it was a slashdot comment) have deserved to be modded either redundant or troll.

But I digress, point is I think it's just there has been no time for insight into this tech yet. But it takes 2 secconds to remember 'wierd science' - which was a comedy. Nobody ever seriously thought this could happen, so nobody ever seriously thought about it at all.

--
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
Re:Insightful message... by eples · 2003-01-23 02:12 · Score: 2, Informative

I can sympathize with that sentiment - you can auto-mod down "funny" posts in your preferences. I have mine set to knock two points off.. That way I have to read all the way to +3 to get the "funny" comments.

Nice feature :)

--
I'm a 2000 man.

beyond the jokes by lingqi · 2003-01-23 00:17 · Score: 5, Funny

Can I print an organ that is disproportional (no I am not thinking about penises) to what normally comes out?

like, say, would I be able to print a sphere of kidney cells?
how about a longer stretch of arm-muscles?
attached to a printed, longer leg-bone?
can I print a new layer of skin, or new hair folicles? (can you imagine rogain all up on this stuff?)
how about a third leg?
in fact, how about a beak?
a gill so I can swim underwater? (i mean, as long as the blood circulates through it)

the possibilities are endless, marvellous, and scary.

--

My life in the land of the rising sun.

Re:print organs? NO! print organisms! by The+Analog+Kid · 2003-01-23 00:23 · Score: 2, Funny

She'd be paper thin, she'd be so flat the wall would be jealous, litterally.

New Terrorist tactic.. by farrellj · 2003-01-23 00:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

Mail a Macro-exploit to Outlook users that causes anthrax to print out on your printer...

I don't know if this is funny or scary...

ttyl
Farrell

--
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h

Re:New Terrorist tactic.. by Sri+Lumpa · 2003-01-23 00:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sure, I would be very impressed when a non-modified bona fide printer manages to create a living, working Anthrax based on shades of black, cyan, yellow and magenta ink.

--
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Re:New Terrorist tactic.. by ShadowDrake · 2003-01-23 11:36 · Score: 2, Funny

I believe you could get just as terrifying effects much more easily.

Four large stripes, one in each colour, and at the bottom, a simple line of black text. "This page consumed $3.62 worth of ink!"

--
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!

Only organs so far by Isle · 2003-01-23 00:43 · Score: 3, Funny

So far they can only print organs, so no girl printing..

But you can print yourself girl organs!

hmm....

Re:print organs? NO! print organisms! by giel · 2003-01-23 00:53 · Score: 4, Funny

$ prn < hottie.3ds error: Printer on fire!

--
giel.y contains 2 shift/reduce conflicts

Differentiation by sam_handelman · 2003-01-23 01:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Jamming the cells into the proper position works with cartilege - you can sculpt an "ear" out of cartilege and surgically implant it in someone's body, if there ear was cut off.

However, more complex tissues require cell differentiation on a microscopic level.

For example, your inner ear - the part of your ear that you use to hear - cannot be simply sculpted.

Individual cells must diversify so as to play the proper role in the function of the organ; the nerve cells attached to the little hairs all have to be wired up properly and in the correct direction. This is true of all the organs you might wish to make. Actually, I'm not certain about the liver - all hepatocytes (liver cells) are pretty much the same, IIRC.

There are cells in the kidney which exist to move salt out of the blood and into the urine (several different types of cells are involved, actually). They are epithelial cells. However, you cannot assemble a kidney out of epithelial cells; it won't work! The epithelial cells need to know - that is to say, they need to recieve chemical signals which indicate:
a) That this epithelial cell is supposed to play a given role in salt transport (most cells don't make the proteins used in this process.)
b) Which SIDE of the epithelial cell the blood is going to be traveling past and which SIDE of the cell the pre-urine is going to be on. In the living organism the blood may carry this signal (the nature of the signal is probably unknown) but you couldn't duplicate that with a printer.

Stuffing epithelial cells (or even epithelial stem cells) into the overall shape of a kidney does not produce the chemical signals that trigger these differentiation events (when a "generic" epithelial cell - a variety of stem cell - becomes a kidney epithelial cell, it is called "differentiation".) In addition to various ions (Salt,) the kidney has dedicated mechanisms for dealing with dozens of other classes of chemicals.

It is POSSIBLE that such a simulated organ might spontaneously arrange itself into a functioning kidney when blood was pumped through the correct portions.

You might be able to help it along with chemical signals from a real kidney, somehow, or synthetic signals you add yourself.

However, personally, I doubt that either of these strategies is going to work.

--
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.

Lots of cell types = organ by panurge · 2003-01-23 02:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Of course even apparently simple organs need lots of cell types - the liver needs blood vessels as well as the various types of liver cells, and even skin consists of multiple layers with different properties.And making anything which needs structural properties could be a problem - cells that need to intertwine, like muscle and bone. Not really a case for even a hexachrome cartridge.

But the concept is really interesting for doing things like creating little insulin producing nodes for diabetics.

Or perhaps little skin-graft packages with a cell mix that would attach to the substrate and then align themselves. Or perhaps producing really effective animal-testing substitutes.

A few years back I spent a little time on a manufacturing think-tank. The one thing everybody agreed was needed was a device that produced objects at their final net shape with no intermediate finishing stages. An inkjet printer basically does that already in two dimensions, and it's additive. It's surely potentially much nearer-term for all sorts of things than (say) exotic silicon micro-machining, and much more process-granular.

I wonder if - no, where - someone is trying to develop an inkjet printer that produces sintered metal shapes?

--
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.

This is your brain... by JoeCommodore · 2003-01-23 03:52 · Score: 2, Funny

This is your Brain on Paper...

Oh man there are sooo many good jokes here!

Hey! Don't touch my monkey, he isn't dry yet!

--
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield

Star Trek explained... by CommieLib · 2003-01-23 05:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

One of the things that always cracked my suspension of disbelief wide open was the medical technology on Star Trek. Specifically, whenever the doctor (choose your favorite) would pass a light over someone's arm and the wound would close.

It seems to me that this could be the reality, give or take 100 years, to that dramatic device. Start with a good gash in someone's arm, something bad enough to require stitches and would leave a scar with our current technology. Doctor takes a hand held "flesh printer", that "prints" either a rejection neutral flesh cover to the wound (more Star Trek tech) or a genetically specific cover (maybe presampled and supplied in the device, or even more fancy dynamically sampled and generated).

So muscle injuries require more involved work, but a shallow tissue wound can be fixed more or less on the fly.

Real doctors: start your engines. What's stupid about this idea? It is of course more complicated than simply laying the skin over top; blood vessels and nerves would have to be reconnected, depending on the damage. I would appreciate a thoughtful critique.

--
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.

teleportation! by mikeee · 2003-01-23 05:07 · Score: 2, Funny

Now all we need is one of those deli meat-slicers and a good scanner and we can email ourselves around!

I can see it now... by Chris+Mattern · 2003-01-23 06:49 · Score: 2, Funny

"Yeah, I remember John. Poor guy. Died on the operating table when they had a paper jam."

Chris Mattern

Re:print organs? NO! print organisms!-Fill'er up. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-23 08:39 · Score: 2, Funny

"Aren't women sorta like organism printers?"

Yup! Just got through filling the "ink" reservoir on one, beautiful "ports" too. And the paper "feed" is a joy to behold. In about nine months, baring any "jamming" or "leaking",there will be a lot of little "fonts" to admire, as long as "backspace" isn't being used.

Re:There's been recent work on this by ocelotbob · 2003-01-23 12:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

I disagree here. I can see it as being quite possible to print out the proper texture of a decent steak. All you would have to do is put a good steak under the microscope and analyze the patterns of where the cells are, and how they're shaped. From there, you merely have to map different types and cuts of meats and save them on computer to get different flavors.

Just like an inkjet printer uses different ink tanks - some have up to 8 now for different colors - the hypothetical steakjet printer could have different lengths and textures of cells, and the cook merely tells the printer which pattern of cells to print out. Say one set of cells for filet mignon and another for a nice porterhouse

--

Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses

Slashdot Mirror

Produce Organs...From Printer

42 of 213 comments (clear)