Technorati - 3D printer used to engineer new bone-like material

So far printers have been used as a fax machine, printer, scanner and a xerox machine, but these are all 2D printers. Have you heard of 3D printers? These days everything happens in 3D from the latest blockbuster movies to the TV shows in your living room, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. According to various news sources, researchers from the Washington State University used a 3D inkjet printer to create a new bone-like material. And what's exciting is that this material actually does look like bone, acts like bone and feels like bone too.

Earlier in 2007, a similar study was being carried out by a researcher from McGill University who also tried using a modified inkjet printer to produce three-dimensional bioceramic "bones".