Print a 200-million-year-old dinosaur 'fossil' in your own home

This is pretty cool. Budding Archaeologists can now print out 200 million year old Dinosaurs in the privacy of their own homes. What will they think of next? The sky's the limit with this kind of Tech available.

The digital reconstruction of the skull of a 200-million-year-old South African dinosaur, Massospondylus, has made it possible for researchers to make 3D prints and in this way facilitate research on other dinosaurs all over the world.

www.sciencedaily.com...

"I was amazed when I started digitally reconstructing Massospondylus' skull, and found all these features that had never been described," said Chapelle, "it just goes to show that researchers still have a lot to learn about South Africa's dinosaurs." Some of the most interesting discoveries from the skull, which is described in Chapelle's paper include: details on how the inner ear and the middle ear contacted each other and what these looked like -Where the nerves connecting different parts of the skull to the brain were and which bones they went through- that replacement teeth don't erupt in a specific pattern and are present on all teeth, and -that the bones that surround the brain in this specific fossil were not fully fused

My homes not big enough to print a Tyrannosaurus rex.

a reply to: neo96

ha I know, I was thinking more along the lines of a sized down one, maybe 5ft tall would be good. I'd need a museum sized house for a full T-Rex lol.

originally posted by: neo96
My homes not big enough to print a Tyrannosaurus rex.

originally posted by: neo96
My homes not big enough to print a Tyrannosaurus rex.

I keep T-Rex in the record cabinet.

That's pretty cool but I'd be more interesting in printing out a scale model of Cheops pyramid or Luxor.

a reply to: SkeptiSchism

The great wall of China would make a nice fence for my place, scaled of course.

originally posted by: neo96
My homes not big enough to print a Tyrannosaurus rex.

If it takes 200 million years to print, maybe you'll have a bigger home by then.

originally posted by: SkeptiSchism
That's pretty cool but I'd be more interesting in printing out a scale model of Cheops pyramid or Luxor.

You might find something at shapeways.com, but you can always make a model using Blender, then uploading and selling it.

The next stage will be to reconstruct the tendons and muscles with printable muscles, then see how the head really moved. There are polymer plastics than can contract when an electric current is applied.