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US Military Working On 3D Printing Exact Replicas of Bones & Limbs
ErnieKey writes The U.S. military is working with technology that will allow them to create exact virtual replicas of their soldiers. In case of an injury, these replicas could be used to 3D print exact medical models for rebuilding the injured patient's body and even exact replica implants. Could we all one day soon have virtual backups of ourselves that we can access and have new body parts 3D printed on demand?
Hey I remember that movie!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
It will look so much like the real McCoy, they will be able to use it in the next Star Trek film
Or as Takeshi Kovacs called them: sleeves
Bones and hard tissues = easy. Vessels, nerves, supporting tissue = nigh impossible. If technology ever got to the point where we could do this, we wouldn't be using soldiers to do our fighting.
I think a 3-d printed brain would be rather handy.
Indeed. Convergence towards a stupidity-singularity seems to be in progress...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Have seen a few cranial reconstruction implants made from MRI/CT to replace cranial defects from trauma and cancer etc. Amazing technology for sure. Beats the alternative by a huge margin. Doing a MRI of a soldiers body at induction might be a good resource when bad things happen? We need to stand behind our soldiers that go into harms way, in the many ways ...
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
I expect nothing of substance when I see "3D printing". You should adjust your expectations likewise.
On one hand, it is dumb. On the other hand, it would be convenient to have scans of the skeletal structure ahead of time. On the gripping hand, if you're making a new part anyway, why not do better than the original? That is, base it on the one on the other side, then make it the ideal shape and size to balance the body? If it's a little different from the original, the patient will cope. Unless, of course, the other side is defective or damaged...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Warm standby?
The Island
Someone keeps swiping all the Scarlett Johansson spare parts to build their own copy.
Have gnu, will travel.
...cause that technology is about as magical as this silly notion:
>> Could we all one day soon have virtual backups of ourselves that we can access and have new body parts 3D printed on demand?
What makes it retarded as opposed to an interesting direction given the present and improving ability to print replacement body parts?
Yep. This is not a 3d printing application, at least based on current 3d printing technology. This is an application for machining a negative mold on a mill, then hydroforming a hollow shape in that mold similar to how modern light truck frames are hydroformed, and filling the hollow core of that part with the correct material. Bones need to be both extremely strong and fairly light weight, and they need to be completely medically sanitary and built in such a way that the body will accept them.
I'm mildly curious if the military would like to put repaired service personnel back into action if such six-million-dollar-man repairs prove practical in the long term.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Unrelated, but made me think about something: is it really that the military develops technologies, or they just take whatever the tinkerers/specialized communities do/imagine and then improve it, or a mix of both things?
The entire premise is ridiculous. The *bone* part isn't important. You can make a perfectly cromulent 'bone' with titanium pieces parts. The BIG issue is attaching the muscles and getting them to work, reattaching the nerves and blood vessels that presumably went missing when the IED popped off. Just filling up an arm or leg with a static printed / milled / molded whatever is going to be OK only if you are laying out a corpse for viewing.
You are much better off spending the time and money to figure out how to regenerate everything. Of course, that's orders or magnitude harder than 3D printing something that low end factories in India have been churning out for centuries (anatomically correct skeletons, no not THAT anatomically correct).
This is getting silly.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Is this the same military which decided that armor was too expensive for humvee's, and that body armor was too expensive for soldiers?
(It's a great idea, I just wonder how they'd ever pull it off.. an ounce of Kevlar is apparently NOT cheaper than a pound of 3d printed skeleton.)
In the year 2525 they will just print whole soldiers.
How about oligarchs move their own butts instead sending kids out to lose limbs in some war.
On one hand, it is dumb.
Why is it dumb? Recruits are already given a physical exam, and doing a body scan and saving the result would cost little.
On the other hand, it would be convenient to have scans of the skeletal structure ahead of time.
So then, it is not dumb?
The only problem I see, is that many recruits are not done growing. When I enlisted at 18, I was 5'9" and weighed 130 lbs. When I was discharged four years later, I was 6'0" and weighed 165 lbs.
I, for one, welcome our 3D printed, paramiltarized, zombie overlords!
I am glad to hear they are trying to help on the medical end. But at this point, I would also like for them to help on their disability end too.
Finding out the hard way, if you are dealing strictly with the Department of Veteran Affairs over a spinal injury without any secondary injuries, you have to have their doctors actually step out and go out of their way to vouch for you above and beyond for them to retire over it.Regardless of if it prevents you from working or not.
You literally have to have half your back physically locked into place for a 50% rating and it takes a minimum of 60% to apply for unemployability Without the doctors actually having to take extra time on you for paperwork just to vouch for you since their medical documentation isn't enough.
Kinda sucks spending half your life depending on your family for a roof over your head because they would rather you homeless and/or dead then to actually retire you.
How about everyone else stand up for themselves instead of letting the USA do all the hard work of protecting them from each other?
Musculature shapes bone development. While very similar, the radius and ulna are not identical between two arms because people are not typically ambidextrious, and will naturally favor one over the other. Having a mirror is obviously a good place to start with, but not a great answer as the musculature will be slightly different lengths, strengths, and attachment ridges upon which they hang. Inferring what those differences should be and computing them is a non-trivial task. Having a known good sample that all are expected to participate in is a trivial task, comparitively as it can be completed during regularly scheduled physicals prior to deployment.
Thirty four characters live here.
Yeah, it's dumb. Whole body MRIs take a long time and are expensive, even if you factor out the tendency to overcharge everything by a factor of ten in American Medicine. If you use CT as a medium, you are needlessly exposing people to radiation. Data storage isn't cheap. The infrastructure to get the data to the field (or even a different hospital) isn't cheap. It won't do anything useful. As has been noted several times already, bones aren't the big issue - it's the stuff that the bones are attached to.
It's just a fantasy created by some idiot journalist and some other techno fetishists.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why would the US want to build a skeleton army?
I expect nothing of substance when I see "3D printing". You should adjust your expectations likewise.
When I see 3D printing, I expect plenty of substance, just sadly in a globby mess splodged over the printer bed...
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
What makes it retarded as opposed to an interesting direction given the present and improving ability to print replacement body parts?
The fact that a bone is a living organ, not a lump of cheese.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Can we just add a few inches to that appendage please.
I'm photo-shopping my blueprints: So that my boner is bigger. I see a new industry in 'instant' body modification: Bigger breasts, or younger eyes, liver and kidneys.
So that's why she kept saying MultiPASS.
Why the United States Always Loses Its Wars
Veterans Today on February 11, 2015
We are the global village bully that's hated by much of the world.
America loses all its wars because it seems we've always been on the wrong side of history. Morally nor legally should any nation have the right to invade and occupy another sovereign nation, much less believe it can achieve victory in long, protracted wars.
Yet in violation of all ethical precepts and all international laws, the sole global superpower citing its impunity through exceptionalism hypocritically insists it can maintain its moral high ground in its relentless pursuit of regime changes anywhere it so chooses on earth. We are the global village bully that's hated by much of the world.
And it's pure self-aggrandizing bullshit to perpetrate the myth that America is hated because of our "freedom," another rhetorical brainwashing lie. We now live in a fascist totalitarian police state run by a globalized crime syndicate of the central banking cabal. As of last April per a Princeton-Northwestern study the US has officially been designated an oligarchy.
Last year after a group of ethnic Russians living in Crimea voted to become part of Russia, the Russian military claimed control over its own naval base there that the US-NATO had been lusting to steal after the unlawful overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected sovereign government.
Ever since it's been nonstop lies and propaganda propagated to demonize Putin as the aggressor when in fact all along it's the American Empire that's been recklessly pushing what could end up World War III against nuclear powered Russia. With US-NATO missiles installed on Russia's doorstep in virtually every former Soviet eastern bloc nation, hemming Russia in, who's really the aggressor here?
The WMD lie that was the repeated mantra used as prewar drum beating propaganda to launch a war against humanity in Iraq a dozen years earlier is now being replayed as deja vu all over again to amnesic, dumbed down Americans. Despite defeats in both Iraq and Afghanistan still being dragged out as America's longest running wars in its history, the US-NATO war machine is once again prepping for yet more war raging now in Eastern Ukraine.
The US government's rush to war hit a minor snag the other day when various European nations like France and Germany announced their opposition and refusal to send arms to the Ukraine government, wanting to give peace talks with Russia a chance. Today's headlines state that Obama has been forced to pause in his arms rush, not unlike the world turning against his rush a year and a half ago for air strikes in Syria after the false flag chemical weapons attack that was actually launched by US backed rebels.
So it may not be full speed ahead for US Empire to ship its heavy weaponry to the eastern warfront after all. It is being reported that mercenaries speaking American English, Polish, French and Flemish are fighting for the Kiev government in Eastern Ukraine against ethnic Russians who are fighting for their independence, their home and their very survival. And with their backs up against the wall, recently the eastern Ukrainians have beaten back the Ukrainian government forces. Again, the US has a knack for being on the wrong side of history.
No true victor can emerge from any war on either side. The incessant US aggressor boasting superior firepower as the most deadly, expensive military force on the planet (spending more than the next ten nations combined), America has little to show for itself as it has not won a single war in seventy years!
Neo-colonialism cloaked in imperialism, balkanization, economic exploitation, debtors' theft, indentured servitude and enslavement can never be justified as the spoils of war. It's a losing proposition in every imaginable way, not only for the aggressive American Empire that keeps starting and losing war aft
How about everyone else stand up for themselves instead of letting the USA do all the hard work of protecting them from each other?
LOL, good one!
How about everyone else stand up for themselves instead of letting the USA do all the hard work of protecting them from each other?
LOL, good one!
The U.S. did save the world through its involvement in WWII. That, and we contribute the largest amount of foreign aid of any country. Look at our efforts to stifle the development of AIDS in Africa, even (especially in that case) under Bush. Or relief efforts in Haiti after the Earthquake, Japan after the Fukushima reactors, search and rescue for the downed Malaysian airlines flight.
Bones are not living. They are host to lots of living stuff but they are dead. There is lots of research and practice into building 3D frameworks for your body to grow back into. Not all three D printing is little plastic doodahs.
The fact that a bone is a living organ, not a lump of cheese.
Wow, that does sound pretty stupid. But weren't they planning to replace bone with things like titanium rather than things like cheese?
yeah, biggest foreign aid on paper, in front of cameras and flashes. After year they never materialize.
Fuck you masters of empty promises.
http://thedriftwars.com/
So, how large can the new robot overlords make their next generation of battle robots? /military will be all clones and drones....
If bones are not living, why do they become stronger if you do weight lifting?
Why is bone loss a problem in long term space missions.
How do bones grow back together if they break?
All that nice magic ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Bones are not the be-all end-all, but they're very important. (Say, just as important as nerves and blood vessels and what-have-you.) If you want to find out how important *just* the bone is, find someone who has lost a sizable segment of a long bone due to injury and ask them what they had to go through to get over it.
Yeah, it's dumb. Whole body MRIs take a long time and are expensive, even if you factor out the tendency to overcharge everything by a factor of ten in American Medicine. If you use CT as a medium, you are needlessly exposing people to radiation. Data storage isn't cheap. The infrastructure to get the data to the field (or even a different hospital) isn't cheap. It won't do anything useful. As has been noted several times already, bones aren't the big issue - it's the stuff that the bones are attached to.
Ok, what makes it dumb? Whole body MRIs aren't that significant an issue either in time or cost. The argument that CTs expose people "needlessly" to radiation is incorrect simply because there is an obvious need. US soldiers get injured all the time and sometimes those injuries destroy bone and other parts of the body.
Data storage might not be cheap, but it's not expensive either. Same goes for data delivery infrastructure.
As to the claim that it won't do anything useful, that's already been dealt with since we're rebuilding human bodies which is already known to be an activity with considerable value.
As has been noted several times already, bones aren't the big issue - it's the stuff that the bones are attached to.
And once that is solved, there will no doubt be further obstacles which we will solve in a similar fashion to our past problems.
To summarize, I don't see at all why this idea is supposed to be dumb.
Why the hell is the article refering the us military? This stuff is being done by civilians as well. 3D printed bones, 3D printed organs. No need to advertise the people who actually run a business in breaking things.
Oblique calcium reference for anyone familiar with anatomy and physiology.
The problem, I suppose, was the headline, not the article. If there is no bone left to regrow from (bones are incredibly good at healing themselves, unlike many other parts of the body), you can be damn sure there won't be any soft-tissue worth talking about either, so there's no need for "a bone". Replacing joints, which is what the article seems to be pointing more towards, is a different matter entirely.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
If you reconstruct a soldier, replacing every body part one by one until all body parts have been replaced, is it still the original soldier?