The handheld skin printer resembles a white-out tape dispenser – except the tape roll is replaced by a microdevice that forms tissue sheets. Vertical stripes of "bio ink," made up of protein-based biomaterials including collagen, the most abundant protein in the dermis, and fibrin, a protein involved in wound healing, run along the inside of each tissue sheet.
"Our skin printer promises to tailor tissues to specific patients and wound characteristics," says Hakimi. "And it's very portable."
The handheld device is the size of a small shoe box and weighs less than a kilogram. It also requires minimal operator training and eliminates the washing and incubation stages required by many conventional bioprinters.
This handheld skin printer reminds me of this item from the movie Starship Troopers, which is loosely based on the Robert Heinlein novel of the same name.
(Starship Troopers medical tank)
In Frank Herbert's 1977 novel The Dosadi Experiment, BuSab agent Jorx X. McKie routinely packed some uniflesh, with attached mediskin, for purposes of creating a disguise.
In his 1960 novel Dr. Futurity, Philip K. Dick wrote about art-derm, which was spray-on skin that could be directly applied to wounds.
Over her lacerated right shoulder he sprayed art-derm; it sealed off the open wound, halted bleeding, and prohibited infection.
(Read more about art-derm)
Prairie Madness - And Space Sickness
'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...' - Hugo Gernsback, 1911.
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Prairie Madness - And Space Sickness
'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'