3D printer lets Thunder Bay professor hold 'bones' of human-like species

A new 3D printer at Lakehead University will allow a leading anthropology professor to handle the bones of now-extinct species without any need to worry about causing damage to the fragile finds.

Matt Tocherisays theprinter, funded by from Canadian Foundation for Innovationand the province, is very important for his work.

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One of his current areas of study as the Canada Research Chair in human origins ishomo floresiensis, an evolutionary cousin of humans thatlived on the Indonesian island of Flores, home to Komododragons.

And thanks to the 3D printer, he has a "skull" complete with teeth that he brought to CBC Thunder Bay's studio.

"These fossils are extremely fragile and so traditionalcasting andmouldingtechniques can't be done because it's too likely that'lldamagethe original specimens," he toldSuperior Morning. "And these fossils areirreplaceableand they're the only voice of these individuals in thisspecies that's left, and so we have to treat that with the utmost respect."

The tool-using specieswalked on two legs, wasonly about a metre tall and lived until around 50,000 years ago theblink of an eye in evolutionary terms.

"They survived alongsideKomododragons for up to probably a million yearson that island, until roughly the time that modern humans ... began to disperse around the world and colonized Australia," Tocherisaid, noting that the species were on Earth at the same time as humans, though it's not clear if they ever met.

Tocheri said the original skull is at the National Centre for Archaeology in Indonesia. It was recreated by taking the bones to a Jakarta hospital for a CT scan.

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He's also already printed fingers from Homo naledi,a recently discovered ancient human ancestor.

"Having an actual model in your hand is a big difference ... from seeing it on the computer screen," he said, noting that he can scale up the printed bones to see how the evolution of body size might affect the shapes, or he can scale down a laser-scanned copy of the cave to discuss the sedimentation process.

"It's really a huge help," he said.