3D Printed ‘Bionic Ear’ Hears 1000000x Better Than Normal Human Ears

Priceton University scientists have developed a bionic year that hears much better than that of a normal human’s, and it was printed off a 3D printer. We recently had 3D printing technology being used to Mechanical Engineer Anjan Contractor Will Help NASA 3D-Print Food For Space Travel, and even the future potential of 3D printing human organs is being considered since long, but the thing to note here about this venture is that the printed ear is entwined with embedded electronics. The scientists basically 3D-printed cells and nano-particles, and later they combined the cartilage with coil antenna to develop this ‘bionic’ ear, resulting in a fully functional organ that catches a million times higher radio frequencies as compared our normal human ear.



How our ear hears now is by converting acoustic signals into electrical signals which is then routed to the brain, while ‘bionic’ ear already has an electric coil which lets it pick up electronic signals straightaway.

The team wondered whether they could grow an organ in a petri dish, twining the electronics into the organ as it grew. Their successfully accomplished project involved a $1,000 3D printer to print the cells with the electronics, and the ear was then transferred to a dish so that the cells could grow into cartilage tissue over 10 weeks.

This ‘ear’ is not intended to relieve those who cannot hear, or those who don’t have ears, but rather, this is something that would offer a normally healthy human an altogether different superpower where they can catch the slightest of noise.