Prosthetic limbs – like this arm for a 2-year-old girl – are currently being 3D printed. New Zealand is at the start of an “accelerating race” when it comes to 3D printing – but the ethics need to catch up, a leading expert warns.

Professor Olaf Diegel heads up the 3D printing lab at the University of Auckland. Researchers have already made a start on “bioprinting” – printing organs such as bladders and tracheas – but Diegel predicted the ability to print more complex organs such as livers and kidneys could come in the next decade. That would be life-changing, he said, but it also came with a host of ethical and social questions – such as whether people would be able to live to 150, or whether 3D printed organs would be only available to the rich.

The Island , a film where rich people kept clones […]

Click here to view original web page at www.stuff.co.nz