Scientist use 3D Printed soil to help understand how the world works beneath our feet
I love how more and more scientist are using 3D Printing to do research.
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Soil scientists at Abertay University are using 3D printing technology to find out, for the very first time, exactly what is going on in the world beneath our feet.
In the same way that ecologists study the interactions of living organisms above ground, Professor Wilfred Otten and researchers at the university's SIMBIOS Centre are taking advantage of the new technology to do the same below ground.Using X-ray Computed Tomography (CT scanning), the team have already been able to create 3D images of the intricate structure of soil – a network of pores not unlike the holes in an Emmental cheese.However, they now want to know how these holes, or "pore spaces", determine the ways in which the fungi and bacteria living within them interact.And 3D printing technology has enabled the scientists to start finding out, as they can now turn the 3D images on the computer screen into real-life, hand-held, 3D objects.*The incredibly detailed plastic cubes that are printed out are replicas of the structure of the soil, and are being used by the scientists as experimental systems in the lab.By inserting microorganisms (such as fungi and bacteria) into the pore spaces within the plastic soil, the scientists can now observe how these microorganisms move through it, survive, find food sources and interact.Although 3D printing is becoming more common, and people can buy 3D printers to use at home, it has never been used to print something so intricate and detailed as soil before.Before CT scanning became available, soil samples were dug up and the structure and pore networks of the soil were disrupted.This, Professor Wilfred Otten explains, was like studying the rubble of a demolished building:This video is not supported by your browser at this time.
"In the past, before X Ray CT scanning became available, soil samples were taken back to the lab and studied there. But that's like studying the rubble of a collapsed building – you would never be able to tell what the structure of the building had been before it fell down, how many rooms it had, or how many people lived in or used it, and all the different things the different people used it for.
"These days we all know about the ways that species interact with each other and their environments above ground, and how sensitive they are to changes in their habitats. What we often forget, however, is that everything above ground relies on the soil it stands on – it plays a major role in food security and the carbon cycle, for example – but we still know very little about what goes on down there.
Source: http://phys.org/news/2014-01-3d-soil...d-beneath.html
