By Herp News
First came the horn From knee joints to human organs, and from prosthetics for pets to guns, it seems that the limits of 3D printing are bound only by imagination. Taking 3D printing to the next step are the founders of a start-up company, Pembient, who want to print synthetic rhino horns. The pointy, curved horn of a southern white rhino in Kenya looks tough compared to flamingos. Photo credit: Sue Palminteri Matthew Markus, one of Pembient’s founders, stated in an email interview with Wildtech that he has had the idea for making synthetic rhino horns for about two decades. “It originated from a wish that physical goods could be copied as easily as bits in a computer. Within the last couple of years, biotechnology has advanced to the point where fantasy is turning into reality. That’s why lab-grown leather (Modern Meadow), cow-free milk (Muufri), and chicken-free egg whites (Clara Foods) have all started to emerge. I view our undertaking as a natural extension of this movement to remove animals from commerce, a movement led by New Harvest.” So went the rhinos Currently, about 29,000 rhinos survive worldwide in the wild. Most are southern white rhinos, found in southern and eastern Africa; fewer than 3,500 rhinos remain in Asia. From nearly 500,000 rhinos across Asia and Africa at the beginning of the 20th century down to 70,000 in the 1970s, the population of these herbivores continues to plummet, mainly due to poaching. There is only one male northern white…
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Read more here: herpetofauna.com
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