QUOTE
New Tech Reveals Mastodon Secrets
For the first time in thousands of years, mastodons are growing in Michigan, thanks to the wonders of inkjet technology.
A method of "rapid prototyping," which uses inkjets to build faux bones from virtual bones, is enabling paleontologists to make accurate full-sized and miniature replicas of mastodon skeletons. The computer-completed skeletons then can make more durable museum exhibits and models for studying mastodon movement and behavior.
Drawing of a Mastodon
Ink-jet technology is helping to create sturdier museum displays of mastodons and other dinosaurs.
"We didn't want to rely on our sculpting abilities," said Daniel Fisher, a mastodon specialist at the University of Michigan, about creating bones that were missing from the Buesching mastodon.
The mastodon was named for the family on whose Michigan land the partial skeleton was found.
Among the missing bones is a right femur. To make the missing bone, researchers used three-dimensional measurements of the existing left femur to build a virtual femur.
Then, they flipped it around digitally to create a right femur. The digital right femur was "printed" out into a plaster model of a femur in a 3-D inkjet printer made by Z Corporation. It's the same technology used by engineers to build prototypes of new cars and parts for all sorts of machines.
"Once you have the 3-D data, you can pretty much do anything," said Brett Lyons, who manages the rapid prototyping lab at the University of Michigan.
Other models he's built for researchers using digital data include human hearts from CAT scan data, experimental race-car engine air intakes, arteries from ultrasound data, and experimental scaffolds for growing real bones.
Like most of the other models, Fisher's mastodon bones were built layer by 0.004-inch layer using an inkjet sprayer that sprays water soluble glue only where a bone is to be built, which is then coated with a plaster dust that sticks to the glue.
Thousands of layers later, they open up the prototyping machine, vacuum up the excess dust and lift out a model of a bone.
Rapid prototyping has been used to make replicas of other ancient animals, but never before to make missing bones and fiberglass models of mastodons.
The final step is to create a cast, from which they can make durable fiberglass bones that can be used in the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History mastodon exhibit. Besides being less brittle than plaster, the tough and rigid fiberglass bones contribute to a better museum setting, Fisher said.
"You can make more dramatically posed skeletons," he explained.
Fisher also looks forward to using the technology to shrink models to any size. He hopes to make scaled-down versions of mastodons to use in physical testing to find out how the bulls locked tusks and fought, creating still-visible injuries on opponents' bones.
"So I'll end up with a Chihuahua mastodon," he said.
These toy mastodons will make it relatively simple to recreate the physics of live mastodon combat, he said.
For the first time in thousands of years, mastodons are growing in Michigan, thanks to the wonders of inkjet technology.
A method of "rapid prototyping," which uses inkjets to build faux bones from virtual bones, is enabling paleontologists to make accurate full-sized and miniature replicas of mastodon skeletons. The computer-completed skeletons then can make more durable museum exhibits and models for studying mastodon movement and behavior.
Drawing of a Mastodon
Ink-jet technology is helping to create sturdier museum displays of mastodons and other dinosaurs.
"We didn't want to rely on our sculpting abilities," said Daniel Fisher, a mastodon specialist at the University of Michigan, about creating bones that were missing from the Buesching mastodon.
The mastodon was named for the family on whose Michigan land the partial skeleton was found.
Among the missing bones is a right femur. To make the missing bone, researchers used three-dimensional measurements of the existing left femur to build a virtual femur.
Then, they flipped it around digitally to create a right femur. The digital right femur was "printed" out into a plaster model of a femur in a 3-D inkjet printer made by Z Corporation. It's the same technology used by engineers to build prototypes of new cars and parts for all sorts of machines.
"Once you have the 3-D data, you can pretty much do anything," said Brett Lyons, who manages the rapid prototyping lab at the University of Michigan.
Other models he's built for researchers using digital data include human hearts from CAT scan data, experimental race-car engine air intakes, arteries from ultrasound data, and experimental scaffolds for growing real bones.
Like most of the other models, Fisher's mastodon bones were built layer by 0.004-inch layer using an inkjet sprayer that sprays water soluble glue only where a bone is to be built, which is then coated with a plaster dust that sticks to the glue.
Thousands of layers later, they open up the prototyping machine, vacuum up the excess dust and lift out a model of a bone.
Rapid prototyping has been used to make replicas of other ancient animals, but never before to make missing bones and fiberglass models of mastodons.
The final step is to create a cast, from which they can make durable fiberglass bones that can be used in the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History mastodon exhibit. Besides being less brittle than plaster, the tough and rigid fiberglass bones contribute to a better museum setting, Fisher said.
"You can make more dramatically posed skeletons," he explained.
Fisher also looks forward to using the technology to shrink models to any size. He hopes to make scaled-down versions of mastodons to use in physical testing to find out how the bulls locked tusks and fought, creating still-visible injuries on opponents' bones.
"So I'll end up with a Chihuahua mastodon," he said.
These toy mastodons will make it relatively simple to recreate the physics of live mastodon combat, he said.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050502/mastodon.html
I'd like to see them make models of Smilodon. 