3 Tidbits on 3-D Printing

1. I mentioned earlier this week that the FDA has approved 3-D printed materials for filling in skull fractures. Researchers are also looking at the possibility (meaning that they don't have FDA approval yet) for creating artificial ear lobes (open access!). So what's the next device in the medical arena? Noses would be an easy extension of this latest advance.
2. While these advances in the medical field are leave you hopeful for the future, sadly, the boys at Defense Distributed always have something to offset it, in this case a new 30-round AR-15 magazine. I realize that sooner or later someone would want to use 3-D printing for these applications and that you can't put the genie back into the bottle, but the confrontational attitude expressed on their website (e.g, calling this new magazine the "Cuomo magazine" and wishing the Governor a bad case of herpes) bothers me more than a little.
3. And while at times there seems to be little that 3-D printing can't do (or won't be able to do in the near future), Doug Smock at The Molding Blog suggests that too many people have been "drinking the 3-D printing Kool-Aid" (including the president) and that a touch of reality is needed amidst all the the hype.