The U.S. Army is a pioneer when it comes to 3D printing, but some say they went too far this time. The American army wants to use the technology to provide for cheaper warheads, so says an official to Motherboard, who are very skeptical about these developments. The website itself compares this kind of 3D printing with something as dangerous as printing guns. The U.S. Army also experiments with bioprinting in order to recover wounds, and investigates how food printing could help the military world.

The idea behind using this technique is that the U.S. Army could one day build warheads with smaller and more compact parts that save the army money and allow for more security measures. Motherboard, however, thinks the entire development generally comes down to being the U.S. Army’s “latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost”. Despite the skepticism from Motherboard, the army hopes to one day be able to 3D print entire warheads.

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All good things come to an end and the same thing goes up for this year’s Tour de France. The tour ends today, which is probably good news for all exhausted cyclists, but we can imagine fans would have liked the tour to continue for a little longer. But maybe this 3D artwork will help fans to continue their enjoyment.

The tour the France is always held in France, but the cyclists cross different countries as well, as the tour would otherwise be too short. However, if you’re living in Northern England’s North Yorkshire, you wouldn’t expect the tour to cross your town. Nevertheless, that is what happened this year and Niki Firmin therefore came up with the idea to commemorate the rare occasion using a 3D pen.

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BMW has come up with something interesting, combining 3D printing technology with ecology. They’ve been working together with Swedish architect Erik Melldahl to design what they’ve called Maaisaica, a 3D printed BMW car, which uses degradable materials. It was built in Sarengeti in Africa and Melldahl got his inspiration from the Maaisai culture as well as new ways of manufacturing.

They’ve created a concept, which has to go to the Maasai tribe in Serengeti. The striking thing is that this car uses lots of degradable materials. The main body of the car is made of a mixture of mycelium mushrooms and grass and this is grown on top of a 3D printed structure. In only a few days, this degradable structure can be printed. The vehicle uses a membrane, which collects fog during the night and creates a self-sufficient system to cool the motor and greenhouse. This water can also be used to collect water for nearby villages.

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Apparently a little problem for today’s medical students is that there are a lot of them while people are living longer, which means there’s less material for medical education. Of course this isn’t a real problem, as it’s basically the medical world’s goal to make us live longer, but those students have to learn their techniques in some kind of way. Monash University in Australia therefore found the answer: 3D printed body parts.

In a press release, they’ve announced that they have now brought a commercially available anatomical body parts kit to the market, which can be used by medical students and is not just useful, but also soft-effective. The cadaver has 3D printed items such as limbs, a chest, a head, abdomen and a neck. It, however, does not feature human tissue.

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It’s becoming easier and easier to buy a 3D printer. This Monday, Home Depot Inc., which is the world’s largest home-improvement chain, has started selling 3D printers by MakerBot in twelve of their stores in California, Illinois and New York. In addition, you will also be able to buy a MakerBot on their website. Home Depot is following the example of chains such as Hema, Staples and Amazon, who recently started flirting with the technique.

For Home Depot this will be a pilot, where they could test whether selling 3D printers will be successful or not. The company also hopes that it puts them on the forefront of a new technique, and it makes them the next giant company to jump on the bandwagon of 3D printing technology.

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In Japan they’re not really fans of 3D printed vaginas, as we learned from yesterday’s bizarre story. Marriage, however, seems to be something the Japanese are much more into. 3D printing company Morisaki Jushi jumps on the bandwagon with their new project ‘Mariage Poupée’, which is French for “marriage doll”. To be a little more specific: the Japanese company enables marriage couples to get a 3D print of themselves.

Of course the technique isn’t something new, and on a global scale many parties are working with this technique. A perfect example comes from retailer Hema, which lets customers use a scan lounge to get a 3D print of themselves. But thanks to parties such as Morisaki Jushi, the concept is now also being applied to the field of marriages. Whether you find it shoddy or romantic, the technique behind it is surely interesting.

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3D printing can sometimes be a little controversial. There surely are questions to be asked, such as can we morally 3D print guns or is it ok to 3D print Chinese cultural artifacts? However, this story about a 42-year-old Japanese woman will certainly be the weirdest you will read about in weeks. Megumi Igarashi, who goes under the name Rokudenashiko, is an artist from Japan who has been arrested under suspicion of selling 3D print files from her vagina via e-mail to 30 people.

So, good question: what is the general idea behind this? Well, at first it’s good to know that the vagina is something Japanese people do not like to talk about at all. There’s kind of a stigma attached to talking about the subject, while apparently chatting about penises is not a biggie for the Japanese. They even seem to organize a penis festival every year (seriously, check out that link). Rokudenashiko used to not talk about vaginas as well, but at a certain time she decided this prudishness had to come to an end. Or in her own words: she thought vaginas had to be demystified.

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For most of us, watching antique teacups behind glass walls in museums has never been our favorite thing to do, and Dutch designer Maaike Roozenburg shared these feelings. Old functional objects could never come to life if we can only look at them. She therefore decided to do something about it and came up with the expression ‘smart replicas’.

So what are smart replicas? Thanks to 3D printing technology she was able to make a replica of each object, after which she added a layer of augmented reality information. The information from each piece could thereafter be accessed via smartphone or tablet, which makes the dull, old teacups come to life for visitors.

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