HN Explorer

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backprop1989
Calling it a necroprinter is equal parts ominous and spectacular.
debesyla
Reminds me of something from Warhammer 40k universe. Next someone is going to put ChatGPT helper inside a human skull, probably :V
dmurray
And then you find that the inks they've tried it with are solutions of cancer cells.

The necroprinter prints cancer.

b3lvedere
"Hi, i'd like some dead nozzles for my necroprinter please. What do you mean i can only pay with SoulCoin?"
amelius
It is silly. By that standard, your leather shoes should be called necrofootwear.
kragen
I am definitely going to do this now. But shouldn't the rest of the word be Greek too? Let's put on our necropodes to go for a walk? Or necropapoutsi? That's not a classical root.
kragen
They say the mosquito proboscis has a 20 μm inner diameter, "100% finer" than commercial alternatives (presumably meaning half the diameter). Not having read the paper, I'm guessing it can't handle 210° molten PLA.
sirobg
I wonder if at scale this will lead to mosquito farms or to mosquito extinction in nature.

Of course I suspect it will be the former but the latter is way funnier.

We've been stuck with these insects for a while. It would be so funny that the solution to get rid of them was in fact the same that wiped out many species before: over exploitation of natural resources.

cc https://tornyol.com/

unwind
This is cool and great and all, but isn't it a bit ... stretched to motivate this by the fact that the nozzle is biodegradable?

I mean for a printing nozzle with an inner diameter of 20 µm, how much material would be wasted if it was made out of plastic or metal? I get that no such nozzle is available and/or easily made, but shouldn't that be the point of the invention, rather than "yay, it's biodegradable so we save a microgram of plastic/metal"?

froh42
I'm so disappointed they didn't print a tiny benchy in their videos.
bolangi
> Its inner diameter is 20 micrometers, which is about 100% finer than the best commercially available tips.

"100% finer", who uses language like this? I don't even know what it means. How about "half the diameter"?

pennomi
Fine means small, and it’s not a terribly uncommon definition, especially when talking about materials, like paper or textiles.
kbelder
So "100% smaller". I'm not sure it improves the sentence much.
injidup
Why the word "sustainable" in here? It's like every product pitch these days needs the word "sustainable" in it to pass legal.
knowitnone3
wonder if graphene nanotubes would work here. "Single-walled carbon nanotubes have diameters around 0.5–2.0 nanometres"
stevemadere
There’s a long history of using various organs from dead animals as parts/tools in agricultural and industrial processes.

This is one of the smallest scale cases I’ve heard of, but not nearly as weird or innovative as it sounds at first blush.

People have long been making analogous use of stomachs, intestines, even skulls if you go back far enough.