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Injured Bald Eagle Gets New 3-D Printed Beak
An anonymous reader writes "A bald eagle that lost its beak to a poacher's gun receives a 3-D printed beak prosthetic like a dental implant."
More (with pictures): "Mr Calvin, a founder of the Boise-based Kinetic Engineering Group, made a mold of Beauty's shattered upper mandible, laser-scanned it, fine-tuned it in a 3D modeling program, and created a prosthetic beak from a nylon-based polymer."
Will leach chemicals into the eagle that will cause health problems? Will it give fish a bad taste?
They really had an opportunity here. What would be cooler than a bald eagle with a shiny carbon-fiber-and-titanium beak? Maybe make him some razor sharp metal talons too. That would give the poachers pause!
That 3D printing couldnt get any more awesome, something like this comes out of nowhere an proves that, yes, it can! What implications does this hold for humans?aube we could get 3D printe false teeth with A faster turn-around than current moulding techniques.
"I think I can help you with Beauty if you are interested." he said.
Unfortunately, the prosthesis is not anchored securely enough to return Beauty to the wild, but she now can feed herself and preen her feathers.
The new beak is not good enough for the eagle to be in the wild but beauty... At least it shows potential that there may be an improvement to match the original (nature) in the future. Either way, I hope that it will always be kept in good intention of use of 3D printer (such as this example in the article).
really , really old news here.
Now just to give it a 3d-printed gun, so it can go get revenge on the poacher who shot it.
I was recently asked by a client to 3D print some replacement parts for his pet duck.
But he balked when I gave him the bill.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Why, eagles? Why???
I first heard about this in 2009, when I went to the Solidworks 2010 launch event in Boise.
Maybe because I am involved in the local Solidworks community, it is old news here. It was pretty fun event getting to meet the guys who did this, exam the various iterations of beaks
I am actually surprised it took this long to make it to main stream news.
Is go on tor and use bitcoin to hire a hitman for the poacher.
All jokes aside, its pretty damn cool.
Silence is a state of mime.
They should have added lasers.
21st Century Renaissance Man
They both want to make the new film "Beauty and the Beak."
I can't wait to read 5 new and exciting 3D printing stories each and every day!
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I want to have a specially fitted 3d printed beak too! Can you make that happen?
FTFA:
"Beauty continues to thrive under our care without her upper beak. The new growth pushed out the hardware which anchored the prosthetic beak."
And those 1 D beaks? The chicks just don't dig them.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Is it just me or did the writer of that article lump gay marriage in with terrorism?
I emailed Birds of Prey Northwest for an update on Beauty and received this reply yesterday from Ms Fink (Cantwell):
Beauty continues to thrive under our care without her upper beak. The new growth pushed out the hardware which anchored the prosthetic beak. Recently the small amount of new growth has allowed Beauty to do something she has not been able to do since her injury-eat independently. We have constructed a special feeding platform for her and she now feeds herself! We are looking to the future as we measure her minute growth and construct a new plan of attachment. Construction of the beak is the easy part, it is the attachment that is the challenge. Recently, her 2008 procedure videoed by a Seattle news team, was made available on Vimeo and we have had lots of inquiries. Some have suggested that Beauty has a much greater educational impact WITHOUT her beak. When the prosthetic was in place, her story is lost at first glance. Time will tell whether she goes through life with or without a beak. In the meantime, she will remain in north Idaho under my care where she is cherished and well cared for.
Old news, and completely out of date now. The 3D printed beak happened in 2008, and it will no longer work due to growth that pushed out the mounting brackets. Beauty does not have an upper beak now, though the growth is allowing her to eat without the prosthetic.
I know this is a random AC posting something meant to be humorous but I have to chime in: Plastic surgery was originally developed to repair damage by accident, injury or disease. Fixing an eagle's beak would actually be the exact purpose of plastic surgery as originally developed.
I consider this a very cool use of 3d printing... And love the idea that we can help an injured animal somewhat.
But bird beaks count as one of the structural marvels of the world - They weigh nothing, last a lifetime, and have incredible strength. A printed plastic beak, even ignoring issues like how it fits, will break and fall off within a few months, leaving the poor thing to starve to death.
So unfortunately, as well intentioned as it sounds, I have to consider this nothing short of cruel. Save the ones we really can, but when an eagle gets shot in the face - Put the damned thing out of its misery, don't use it as a science fair project!
These 3D printing stories are starting to remind me of the "Somebody installs Linux on an X" from the late 90s. There's no doubt that it's cool and all, but at some point it will stop being unusual and stop being newsworthy. I wonder when that point will be.
If Linux was any indication, it will probably be when somebody 3D prints a dead badger.
It's not a beak, they gave the eagle a 3D printed gun! Run for your lives!
They should have killed it.
Beaks have shitloads of nerve endings and sensors in them. You can't just "replace" them with some dead matter. The eagle won’t be able to feel anything with his beak. Also there will be phantom pain, which is even worse.
Yes, it's better than nothing.
But how about *not* shooting an innocent individual in the first place?
Or at least create something that allows the nerves and everything to grow back inside.
I seem to recall reading that printed components are only about 10-30% of the strength of components made by alternative techniques e,g, injection mo(u)lding.
Would it not have been a good idea to create a mo(u)ld around this component and then create a much stronger beak?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
FTA: "...some kind of metaphor about America. Ruined by guns, kept alive by nonprofits, technology comes to the rescue? Sure, I think it works."
.foxnews.com .grist.org
Riiiiiight. And you're THE editor of grist.org. Guns ruined America... You look at America, and chief amongst its problems are things that you think guns cause? Seriously? Well, welcome to my little corner of communist household!
>squid.conf
acl SmallMinded dstdomain
http_access deny SmallMinded
I’ve seen so many bald eagles crying a single tear over terrorism or gay marriage or whatever that it’s really hard not to interpret this as some kind of metaphor about America. Ruined by guns, kept alive by nonprofits, technology comes to the rescue? Sure, I think it works.
Now if we can only get a 3d printed deficit reduction...
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
We have the technology
to make him stronger...
faster...
better...
There's no way this "nylon polymer" replacement can be as hard as the original bone. The substitute won't work too well for cracking bones of small prey when the bird eats.
They had to go ruin it with some PC bs.
Indeed. I expected that crap to be right up front and was pleasantly surprised when I didn't find it.... until the and-we-leave-you with-this-thought at the end.
Plastic surgery was originally developed to repair damage by accident, injury or disease.
And still is, called restorative plastic surgery, as opposed to cosmetic which is the more common and commonly known type today.
In high school, I saw a slideshow presentation by a restorative plastic surgeon. It was like 80 slides of 3rd degree burns, skin grafts, feet caught in paper shredders, and on and on. One of the first slides was a little girl who'd been hit in the face by a tire kicked off by an accident on the other side of the road. You could see her teeth through her cheek.
Several students threw up.
I have no idea what they were thinking. Other than convincing the "pre-med" students to find another major when they went to college. But why did the rest of us have to watch?
The enemies of Democracy are
* reconstrucive. Or maybe both. *shrug*
The enemies of Democracy are
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEREC
I've got two of them myself.
They could have cast a mold and shaped it by hand, then made the actual part with some ideal material. Someone just had to justify their expensive machine.
I'd rate this more as 'cosmetic dentistry' than 'plastic surgery' though.