It seems like technology will never stop its amazing venture, and the advancement of technology in the world of printing has proved the same, time-after-time. Moving on from the galaxy of 3-D printers focused on printing cheeseburgers, bikinis and chocolates, the world of 3D printing has now entered serious life-saving mode by printing extensively vital and precise images like that of rescue robots. Moving further up the ladder, it has been revealed that 3D printing can be effectively used for a bone-like substance scaffold that can prove decisive in healing real broken bones.

The latest use has been discovered by the researchers from Washington State University. During their study, they made use of a commercially accessible 3-D printer designed for making metal objects and later, they optimized it so that it can generate a spray of a ceramic powder similar to bones into an arbitrary 3-D shape draw by designers on a computer screen.

In the reports of the study, which have been made available in the journal Dental Materials, the researchers have explained the manner in which the addition of silicon and zinc can be made for preparing a mixture having twice the strength of calcium phosphate, the main material.

While expressing her opinion regarding the effectiveness of their method for creating bone-like structures, a professor of mechanical and materials engineering, Susmita Bose: "It can make bone scaffold using the material that you want very similar to human bone and it can fix the defect that the physician wants".

During preliminary trials, the scaffold showed support for a mush of new bone cells after going through a period of just one week with immature human bone cells, in a supportive medium.