3D fossil printing

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

This sounds very cool. I'd love to have some early homninid printings.

I wonder how detailed this can get

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21728996.500-3d-print-a-fossil-with-virtual-palaeontology.html
3D print a fossil with virtual palaeontology

SERGIO AZEVEDO was prospecting at an old railroad site in So Paulo state, 
Brazil, when he discovered the fossilised bones of an unknown animal. 
"Many times when you find a fossil in the field it's impossible to 
determine how much of the ancient animal you have," he says. "Sometimes 
you have just part of a bone or a tooth." Azevedo has a solution to this 
perennial problem, which also acts as a safety net in case a stray hammer 
blow destroys an ancient fossil during excavation. Just scan it and print 
it.

His team at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio used a portable CT 
scanner to determine the orientation of the specimen in the ground, then 
they cut out a large section of rock to take back to the lab. There the 
encased fossil was probed using a more powerful scanner - and a 3D replica 
printed out in resin.
[...]