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3D Printed Objects Found Toxic To Fish Embryos (universityofcalifornia.edu)

Posted by Soulskill on from the there-goes-my-fish-hatchery-makerspace-business dept.

itwbennett writes: Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have found that the parts of two common types of 3D printers are toxic to zebrafish embryos. The researchers made this discovery accidentally when a graduate student whose work involves developing tools for studying zebrafish embryos "noticed that zebrafish embryos die after exposure to parts from the 3-D printer." According to the report, "While the embryos exposed to parts from the plastic-melting printer had slightly decreased average survival rates compared to control embryos, the embryos exposed to parts from the liquid-resin printer had significantly decreased survival rates, with more than half of the embryos dead by day three and all dead by day seven. And of the few zebrafish embryos that hatched after exposure to parts from the liquid-resin printer, 100 percent of the hatchlings had developmental abnormalities."

5 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe not such a good idea by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    3D Fish Tank decor

    http://3dprint.com/61418/3d-pr...

    http://www.advancedaquarist.co...

  2. whoops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Gotta like it when this stuff is discovered by accident. Do we have safeguards against putting the latest industrial chemical product into contact with millions of people? Seems like we don't.

  3. Just about everything is toxic to fish by Crashmarik · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As anyone who ever had a fish tank will tell you.

    What would be amazing is if they found things not normally in the egg that weren't toxic to the embryos.

  4. Re:Headline fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I mostly take your point but it is still not quite accurate to say the consumables must be to blame. It is possible that the products themselves are to blame when their inputs are not. That is, it could be an attribute of the manufacturing process and not the material.

    Processes can produce carcinogens from non-carcinogens, for example. Trivially, burning does.

  5. So much for Project Shellter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So Makerbot called on people to help make hermit crab shells to dump in the waters....
    guess that's a bit of a bad idea now.

    http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2011/10/18/project-shellter-can-the-makerbot-community-save-hermit-crabs