New body part?

As long as you’re printing off the latest Groupon coupon for dinner and a movie, how about adding an earlobe or working kidney to the print queue. Just because you’re printer can’t do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Is it the toner?

Though it’s been around for a while, 3D printing – the process of making an object by layering metals, polymers and other materials instead of starting with a block and chiseling away at it – is now coming to the front of the line in manufacturing, science, and medicine. Researchers have “printed” ears, livers and other tissue with living cells instead of plastics. Titanium bones have been printed to replace cancer-ravaged originals.
Not so fast – But Susan Dodds of the University of Tasmania wonders whether  cost and access to the technology and treatment along with whether technology-based enhancement to our natural state and other issues have been thought through in this burgeoning aftermarket industry for the human body?  Printers have come a long way, baby!