A team at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield has recently tested the possibility for 3D printing unsupported structures based on the natural production of insect wings. Insects' wings are generated in such a way that the veins provide their structure without impinging upon their flexibility. Rather than using a ribbed structure, which required expending money on support material and time to remove it from the final print, the team decided to see if they could produce a wing in which the structure was what generated the wing itself. Having successfully created a wing for a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle, the team is now investigating the possibilities of using this type of system for the generation of other structural forms. Read more about the research in the full article: http://3dprint.com/81366/amrc-nature-support-research/