Umm, 5 minutes? The Penn State Powder Metallurgy Lab had a rapid prototyping machine (that's a 3D printer, btw), back in 1999. The technology has been around for a long time, we're just coming up with new ways to utilize that technology.
The materials used in a 3D printer would have a great deal to do the final product that comes out, so active cellular systems would, per force, have to be built with viable materials.
Just my nickel. Used to be just putting one's 2 cents in. :-P
A human is much more than meat...or we could easily reanimate a fresh corpse..
I would LOVE if they used this to make me a steak...but I guess they would have to use a dead animal for the materials...but yeah if they could use amino acids and stuff like that I would be so all over it...
Also: I am almost skinny enough to do the snake costume if you are still up for it...
or even the variation on the stem cell thing where they are also growing specific organs!.,.. I think the news was saying they've grown liver and/or kidney and the mice tests are going amazingly!
Although 3D printing is a relatively new technology with some awesome potential, I doubt we're likely to see anything like what you're envisioning for a VERY long time. What would be needed would be a printer capable of working to an inter-cellular level of resolution to create the living cells .. and also to find a suitable material that the printer could use to process into cells. I suspect the "old-fashioned" method of creating living bodies will remain the only way for the foreseeable future.:) Using 3D printing to be able to build 'scaffolding' for some prosthesis .. now THAT I can envision in a reasonable time frame :)
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The materials used in a 3D printer would have a great deal to do the final product that comes out, so active cellular systems would, per force, have to be built with viable materials.
Just my nickel. Used to be just putting one's 2 cents in. :-P
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I would LOVE if they used this to make me a steak...but I guess they would have to use a dead animal for the materials...but yeah if they could use amino acids and stuff like that I would be so all over it...
Also: I am almost skinny enough to do the snake costume if you are still up for it...
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I suspect the "old-fashioned" method of creating living bodies will remain the only way for the foreseeable future.:)
Using 3D printing to be able to build 'scaffolding' for some prosthesis .. now THAT I can envision in a reasonable time frame :)
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