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OK, OK, so we've all heard the hype about 3-D printing -- and I must confess, I still don't get it.  Guns and groceries and even kidneys, they're doing it all.  But what if you heard about something really good they're doing with 3-D printing? Like making toys for blind kids. According to smartplanet.com, that's exactly what's happening. "' Hands On Search ' is a 3-D printer housed in a bulbous cloud and outfitted with a voice-based user interface that can be used to produce all sorts of plastic miniatures — from giraffes and dragons to planes and buildings — on demand," Janet Fang reports. And with it, kids can print out toys they can touch. Seems pretty simple. As Fang explains: After pushing a big button, students can shout out something they want to touch. Once the voice-activated search engine finds 3-D information, the search item is printed on the spot as a tangible, solid object. A teacher might need to peel extra plastic bits o...

You're not going to believe this.  They're making guns from 3-D printing , and now they're making live kidneys. I had to read the headline twice myself. But medicaldesigntechnology.com reports that "Researchers at a university in eastern Zhejiang Province have used a 3-D printer to create living kidneys, which are expected to be used for transplants in the future." Scientists in China worked to create a miniature of an actual kidney, according to fastcoexist.com.   "The organ can carry out the same functions as human kidneys, like breaking down toxins, and researchers hope that (with, admittedly, many more years of research) they'll one day be a suitable replacement for human kidneys for patients in need of a transplant," the Web site recounts. "It's different from traditional 3-D printing," lead researcher Xu Mingen explained in a video posted to YouTube by the English-language news site China View, fastcoexist.com notes. ...