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3D Printing On a Microscopic Scale
cylonlover writes "Three-dimensional printers are popping up everywhere these days. Some are small enough to fit in a briefcase and others are large enough to print houses, but scientists at the Vienna University of Technology are going for the microscopic. Earlier this year, the university built a 3D printer that uses lasers to operate on a tiny scale. Now they're refining the technique to enable precise placement of a selected molecule in a three-dimensional material. This process, called '3D-photografting,' can potentially be used to create a 'lab on a chip' or artificially grow living tissue."
How many 3D Libraries of Congress per cubic centimeter will it be able to print?
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Am I the only one that sees it?
no. it's basic scifi material. universal constructor building would be a holy grail for manufacturing - for manufacturing _anything_. meanwhile, I just got my makerbot replicator last week. been having fun ever since.
it's still pretty rough around the edges, the sw(replicatorg) has some odd quirks(who am I kidding.. they're bugs.), configuring the slicer(the program that creates the paths for the print-end) is voodoo and I'm considering buying hairspray to better bond the prints to the build platform when building.
but it's fun and magical stuff - certainly first time in years that I've felt getting a piece of "new technology" that's just not refinement of something I've already had for years. it's like getting that first computer.
(oh and anyone uploading stuff to thingiverse.. print it before uploading.. lot's of the stuff there is no good for printing without changes!).
also, does anyone know a site that has the elite shipmodels? vrml mesh, stl(preferred), .obj, .3ds or any fucking format under the sun! I WANT THEM NOW!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It will almost certainly be more economical to make something like a nerve agent using old fashioned chemistry. You can scale up a synthesis to bulk volumes much more easily than waiting for a printer to print out a bulk amount of product. Reaction rate (or reaction time) is independent of volume (ideally), whereas printing time will go linearly with volume.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Your ARE late to the party. They (Professor Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow and a team of 45 researchers) had big stories about their work released in July of this year (2012).
But to answer your question: not really. It's called prioritizing potential threats. Getting killed driving to work is first (I drive a tiny, tiny sports car), Getting electrocuted or stabbed while at work (pneumatics and high voltage, baby!) Getting nailed by severe thunderstorms or tornadoes in "tornado alley". Being killed as a "domestic terrorist" (I'm prior military that enjoys my rights). Being killed by 3d printed poisons in a terrorist attack ranks lower down the list than even "frozen piss falling from overhead airliner".
Terrorists are people with a variety of skillsets and levels, just like anyone else. If they have the skills to print toxins, they have the skills to do a whole lot worse. High school kids can make explosives by the trashcan full, a real bio-chemical engineer could easily get creative enough to make highly addictive chemicals that are hypnotics and have embed-able dispensers that release only when they receive encrypted transmissions. Want to control a country? Addict and control the political, financial, religious, and military leaders. Screw messing with the weak sheep. That's simply a non-optimum diversion.
When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.