Researchers discover way to 3D print directly inside the body without surgery • Hacker News Board

Re: Researchers discover way to 3D print directly inside the body without surgery

#61

Post by tsol » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 1:45 AM UTC

extrememacaroni wrote: post #16

I had to go to the dentist’s yesterday and while looking at some pics I thought the idea of literally screwing in an implant tooth in your gum to be pretty damn crude, primitive even. It would be cool if we could inject some artificial 3D printing thingies in the gum that feed on nutrients from your body and slowly create a new tooth as programmed beforehand. Such robotic thingies could also be used to build new bone…

>It would be cool if we could inject some artificial 3D printing thingies in the gum that feed on nutrients from your body and slowly create a new tooth as programmed beforehand.

Hmm, that sounds just like a cell. In fact it would probably be easiest to find a way to turn tooth regeneration on. Other animals have it, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to except that we haven't figured out how yet.

I agree though and I've thought that before-- something about the dentists office is especially crude. But then again what do you expect when we have chunks of mineral in our face we use to mash food with? Teeth themselves are rather crude

Re: Researchers discover way to 3D print directly inside the body without surgery

#62

Post by tsol » Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 1:46 AM UTC

hoseja wrote: post #25

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That roughly follows some proposed applications of stem cell therapy. Why invent a nanomachine swarm when we are all nanomachine swarms?

Some people really dislike when Grog try to play God, either for misguided religious reasons or somewhat reasonable comprehension of the sheer scale of human ignorance in regards to biological systems.

What religion has a problem with regenerating teeth? It's just a hard problem. We don't even need placenta for stem cells anymore, and we still are a while away from creating a second set of teeth

Re: Researchers discover way to 3D print directly inside the body without surgery

#63

Post by hackerfromthefu » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 8:43 PM UTC

tsol wrote: post #61

extrememacaroni wrote: post #16

I had to go to the dentist’s yesterday and while looking at some pics I thought the idea of literally screwing in an implant tooth in your gum to be pretty damn crude, primitive even. It would be cool if we could inject some artificial 3D printing thingies in the gum that feed on nutrients from your body and slowly create a new tooth as programmed beforehand. Such robotic thingies could also be used to build new bone…

>It would be cool if we could inject some artificial 3D printing thingies in the gum that feed on nutrients from your body and slowly create a new tooth as programmed beforehand. Hmm, that sounds just like a cell. In fact it would probably be easiest to find a way to turn tooth regeneration on. Other animals have it, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to except that we haven't figured out how yet. I agree tho…

This is really a trap I'd like to point out. We often, or usually, look at natural systems without seeing the full picture. This hubris of thinking we understand it when we don't understand many aspects of it is dangerous.

Teeth are not crude, that's just a reductionist understanding of them, or lacking understanding of the many integrated systems they are dynamically part of.

i.e. they have to do the right thing, at the right time, with many other aspects of the body. They grow, resize, even regrow, adapt to spaces and situations, handle living in organic environment with a garden of living bacteria etc, dynamically store and make available minerals and maybe other building blocks for the rest of the body, have a lifecycle, have many organic components, and likely more features I am not aware of!