Create Living Cells With an Inkjet Printer

MattSparkes writes to tell us New Scientist has an article on the use of inkjet printing technology in creating biological tissue. From the article "An inkjet device that prints tiny 'bio-ink' patterns has been used to simultaneously grow two different tissues from the stem cells of adult mice. Surgeons could one day use the technology to repair various damaged tissues at the same time, the researchers say."

Comments

Re:Works great until...

[Harmonious Botch]

...or until you find that someone else copyrighted your liver.

Progress

[quokkapox]

Humanity will inevitably learn new technologies to cheaply and exactly replicate patterns of matter, much as we currently are able to flawlessly and freely share patterns of information. The profound economic effects modern computing has wrought on society are about to be repeated in another echo of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions.

First we somehow learned how to share information, person-to-person, with language. Ten thousand years ago we used that to develop agriculture; we learned how to replicate plants. Then we automated that with the help of domesticated farm animals and handmade tools. We systematized all of this, and then figured out how to globally replicate and distribute the instructions for making the tools themselves. Another cycle gets us where we are today, where we can use all of the available knowledge and tools to design the *next* generation of whatever it is we're trying to do with ourselves.

So where are we going with all this, besides "burning" a batch of Viagra, Ciprofloxacin, LSD, or flu vaccine on your desktop? Maybe we need to keep an open source perspective, so you can at least cook up some aspirin as *FREELY* as you can play an .ogg. You might have to listen to Beethoven while you wait, because Britney, Beck, and Björk are still locked down (although your grandfather might have left you an illicit DVD with the Beatles discography as ancient MP3s).