Ingles

Posted in Biology, 23rd February 2012 13:37 GMT
Dino-loving boffins in the US have embarked on their very own Jurassic Park-esque experiment to bring the actions of Earth'sfavourite prehistoric lizards to life.

The researchers, from Philadelphia's Drexel University, are using 3D printing to create dino-bones and then attaching artificial musclesand tendons to create dinosaur robots.
“Technology in paleontology hasn't changed in about 150 years,” paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara said. “We use shovels and pickaxes andburlap and plaster. It hasn't changed - until right now.”
The 3D printers build the dino-bones by repeatedly putting out thin layers of resin or another material to build up theobject based on a digital design.
“It’s kind of like Star Trek technology, where you can press a button and the object pops out,” Lacovara said, adding that a six-inch model ofa bone can be printed in a few hours.
Because universities and museums generally frown on folks who want to experiment on actual fossilised bones, Lacovara used the printedbones to test out theories of how dinosaurs moved and stood and did the wild thing and other things boffins like to know.
Lacovara has been part of scientific teams digging upsome of the largest known giant sauropod dinosaur specimens, which can reach weights of 55 to 72 metric tons, 12 or 14 times heavier than an elephant.
Unfortunately, working withlife-size dino robots could be a wee bit tricky, not to mention the potential for a terrifying AI/Jurassic Park-spawned rampage, so Lacovara and mechanical engineer JamesTangorra are working on scaled-down models of dinosaurs.
The pair reckon they'll have a working dinosaur limb by the end of the year, and a complete dino-robot in one to two years