Tech Buzz
New 3D Printing Method for Material Development
An associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame has developed a novel 3D printing method that mixes multiple aerosolized nanomaterial inks in a single printing nozzle, varying the ink mixing ratio during the printing process and potentially shortening the time necessary to discover new materials from decades to just months.
The new process, published by Notre Dame's Yanliang Zhang in Nature, is called high-throughput combinational printing (HTCP) and controls both the printed materials' 3D architectures and local compositions while producing materials with gradient compositions and properties at microscale spatial resolution.
"It usually takes 10 to 20 years to discover a new material," Zhang says in a release from Notre Dame. "I thought if we could shorten that time to less than a year-or even a few months-it would be a game-changer for the discovery and manufacturing of new materials."
Zhang and his team already have used HTCP to identify a semiconductor material with superior thermoelectric properties.
HTCP is extremely versatile and applicable to a broad range of metals, semiconductors, and dielectrics, as well as polymers and biomaterials, according to the release. It generates combinational materials that function as "libraries," each containing thousands of unique compositions. It also produces functionally graded materials that gradually transition from stiff to soft, which could be particularly useful in biomedical applications that need to bridge between soft tissue and stiff wearable/implantable devices, the release says.
Zhang says he plans to apply artificial intelligence-guided and machine learning strategies to HTCP next, in order to accelerate the discovery and development of a broad range of materials.
"I hope to develop an autonomous and self-driving process for materials discovery and device manufacturing," he says.
Senate Bill Proposes New Office to Analyze AI, Other Technologies
A bill introduced in the Senate last month would create a new Office of Global Competition Analysis to analyze US strength in artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies compared with other countries.
The legislation was introduced June 8 by Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican Sens. Todd Young and Mark Warner. "We cannot afford to lose our competitive edge in strategic technologies like semiconductors, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence to competitors like China," Bennet said in a release. In addition to experts from the intelligence community and relevant government agencies, the office would involve representatives from the private sector and academia.
Survey: Doctors Don't Feel AI Is Ready Yet
A majority of hospital-based medical professionals believe AI has the potential to transform healthcare, but many feel the technology is not ready yet, according to the "Reimagining Better Health 2023" survey from GE Healthcare.
While more than half of the 2,000 clinicians surveyed say AI can help with decision-making (61%), enable faster health interventions (54%), and help improve operational efficiencies (55%), more than half also say the technology is not yet ready for medical use (55%). Further, 58% say they do not trust AI data, with that number jumping to 67% among clinicians with more than 16 years of experience. The belief that AI may be subject to built-in biases is a concern for 44% of respondents.
Inside Dental Technology's sister publication Inside Dentistry surveyed its readership last year and found that only 9% had integrated AI into their workflows, while 23% were monitoring and considering the technology, 52% had not yet considered it but said they might be open to it, and 16% said AI is not a fit for their practice.
4D Printing Market Growing Rapidly
The market for 4D printing in healthcare is predicted to reach $7.7 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 26.3%, according to a report from Market Research Future.
4D printing has been defined as using the same techniques as 3D printing but incorporating the ability to morph into different forms in response to environmental stimuli. A news release about the Market Research Future report states that 4D printing’s “shape-changing material property in the field of dentistry, implants, and prosthetics, among others, will further enhance the 3D products used for these applications.” Applications the report cites include targeted drug delivery. Of course, 4D printing also has been utilized in removable prosthetics with materials that gain strength when subjected to the temperatures of the oral environment.
The report asserts that North America will continue to dominate the healthcare 4D printing market due to the availability of cutting-edge medical devices, increased funding for research and development, and the volume of companies involved with medical devices and 4D printing technologies.
Could AI Automate Almost Half of Household Chores?
Artificial intelligence (AI) could help automate 39% of the time spent on unpaid domestic work within the next 10 years, according to a study in PLOS ONE. Researchers in the United Kingdom and Japan note that people in the UK ages 15 to 64 spend approximately 43% of their work and study time on housework such as cooking and cleaning. They surveyed 65 AI experts to estimate how automatable 17 housework and care work tasks might be over the next decade. The most automatable task was predicted to be grocery shopping (59%), and the least was physical childcare (21%).
Smallest High-Performance Visible-light Lasers Developed
Researchers at Columbia University have created visible lasers of very pure colors from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared that fit on a fingertip.
The team at Columbia Engineering’s Lipson Nanophotonics Group, in a study published in Nature Photonics, became the first to demonstrate chip-scale, narrow-linewidth, and tunable lasers for colors of light below red—green, cyan, blue, and violet. The colors can be precisely tuned at up to 267 petahertz per second. They have the smallest footprint and shortest wavelength (404 nm) of any tunable and narrow-linewidth integrated laser emitting visible light. The study’s lead author says the findings will enable fully integrated visible light systems for existing and new technologies.
3D Printing Pen Dispenses Wound-healing Ink
Researchers in China have developed a wound-healing ink that can be spread into a laceration using a 3D printing pen.
The process, which the team calls “portable bioactive ink for tissue healing,” uses extracellular vesicles secreted from macrophages combined with sodium alginate. The components are mixed at the pen’s tip and form a sturdy gel on the wound within 3 minutes. “The bioactive EVM2 reprogram macrophage polarization and promote the proliferation and migration of endothelial cells, thereby effectively regulating inflammation and enhancing angiogenesis in wounds,” according to an article the researchers published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Laboratory testing on mice demonstrated advanced healing after 12 days for mice treated with this process compared to those without it.
