A new 3-D printing technique creates solid objects using rays of light

On the Starship Enterprise, replicators were devices that were used "to dematerialize matter and then reconstitute it in another form," according to Startrek.com. For Captain Picard's hungry crew, in particular, that usually meant nostalgically reconstituting meals on demand to appease a sudden craving. Though we remain a long way away from being able to transmogrify matter into a chocolate sundae on command, a team of real-life researchers has created a 3-D printer that can create entire objects simultaneously instead of creating them one painstaking layer at a time like most printing techniques. The new approach ---- known as Computer Axial Lithography (CAL) ---- carves an object out of a synthetic resin that solidifies when it comes into contact with particular patterns and intensities of light. Using a device dubbed "the replicator," researchers from University of California, Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used the technique to create tiny airplanes and bridges, copies of the human jaw, a screwdriver handle and minuscule copies of Rodin's Thinker.