Holy titanium bones, Batman!
Earlier this week, the Guardian reported on engineer-turned-entrepreneur Dr. Siavash Mahdavi’s combination of sintering and AI optimisation software. Potential applications, according to Mahdavi, include the rapid manufacture of ‘made-to-measure orthopedic implants’ -
“A surgeon will have the existing bone MRI scanned. This information is passed via a CAD programme to the 3D printer. By the time the patient gets to the operating theatre, we will have printed out a medical-grade titanium bone which is an identical match to the one being replaced.”
But can we be sure they will be as reliable as existing implants? “Better,” insists Mahdavi. “Firstly, they are much lighter as, like human bone, they are porous rather than solid. And having an internal mesh means you can fuse the implant to the bone, so the natural bone will grow into the holes and lock itself in. Because it’s a porous structure, you can x-ray the implant and see how the natural bone is melding with the implant. And, though these e-manufactured implants are only a quarter of the weight of solid ones, the laser makes a finer material than cast metal - so is it is actually stronger than the current technology.“
From the look of their website, Mahdavi’s company - Complex Matters - is making the most of the technology, capitalising on its applications in a variety of projects.
Fully aware of the fact that its sounds like something pulled from the mind of an overcaffeinated Japanese TV executive, this week, scientists were revealed to
In 1927,
One of the hardest things about this eye-on-the-future blogging gig is finding a story like this, where the headline - “
In a landmark ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport,
Via
Thanks to the huge budgets involved, the military forces of the world tend to get a chance to play with all the best new technology before anyone else. 