The big news this week came from the world of medicine, where a woman got a 3D-printed ear replacement. The 20-year-old woman was suffering from microthia disease, a rare congenital malformation that left her without a pinna, the external structure of the ear. Using a normal ear scan, doctors were able to create a 3D model of what a lost pina should look like. The raw material for the print was taken from the patient’s vestigial ear in the form of cartilage cells or chondrocytes. The ear was printed using a bioprinter, which is somewhat like an inkjet printer. The newly printed ear was placed in a protective structure and replaced. The operation was performed in March, and the results are quite dramatic. With a little squinting, it looks like a bit to have some print artwork in the ear, but we’d like to imagine more from the protective cage that was on the ear as it healed.
This week NASA has released interesting news from Jezero crater on Mars Perseverance Now the rock is exploding autonomously with its laser. During his recent drive on the ancient river delta, the rover discovered two rocks that his autonomous search seemed to be interesting for augmented science or the AEGIS system. Instead of sending the images back to the controllers on Earth and waiting for instructions, AEGIS Rover’s supercam explodes the surface or each rock using an IR laser, while observing the spectrum of the resulting plasma plume. This is the first time AEGIS has been used PerseveranceAnd the thought is that this will allow the planetary science team to concentrate on really interesting rocks.
Meanwhile, the air wing of the 2020 mission to Mars is still making history Cleverness Recently launched its 28th flight. To celebrate, NASA has released video of the helicopter’s 25th flight, which was a 700-meter hop on a landscape that looks a lot like any sandy desert in the world. The turbulent helicopter just kept going, although the winter on Mars is expected to ease the workload. Aircraft batteries are becoming harder to charge, as regulators struggle to balance its increasingly dusty solar panel’s depleted output, and its internal heaters need to be increased to run against the brutal Mars cold. NASA hopes the helicopter will survive the winter, but there is no guarantee that the cunning will still fly in the spring. Which, of course, made the video an overnight sensation. Shows how much we know.
It’s hard to believe that June has already turned around, but here we are almost half way through 2022. And that means we’re at the end of Round 2 of the Hackade Awards. The theme of this round was “Reuse, Reuse, and Reconstruction”, and we saw lots of entries. June 12 is the entry of the “three bucks” round, so you still have a week to get something. Or, if your “R” leans more towards “repair”, you’ll want to see the “hack” 3 rounds back this “challenge.” And don’t forget our other great competition: “odd input and weird peripherals.” We know there. There is a huge community of keyboard makers and attachment fans, and we’re all looking forward to seeing what they bring.
And finally, when you know they’re going to make fun of you, you’re starting to make a difference. Perhaps the folks at Starship Technologies, the makers of the most beautiful Dang delivery bots you’ve ever seen, are now saying that zeitgeist is making their way to Starship failed videos. We’ve recently added a few features to this space, including the wreckage of a train and a boat cruising through the woods. It turns out that there is quite a bit of cottage industry to document these bots – and of course other companies – in their less beautiful moments. What we got was this speed race in a huge hole in the sidewalk, which raises far more questions about pedestrian safety than robot navigation. We suspect that we will see more of these snuff films as robot deliveries enter the market more and more.