BLOGS

A freeze-frame captures a drone exploding, disabling a Russian Tu-95 bomber during Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, a covert drone attack in June. Ukraine's surprise attack unleashed small drones armed with explosives to destroy dozens of unprotected Russian aircraft at air bases across the country. Ukrainian Security Service / Air & Space Forces Magazine

Topics: 3D Printing, Civilization, Education, Existentialism, Fascism

“It was an attack of astonishing ingenuity – unprecedented, broad, and 18 months in the making.

“On 1 June, more than 100 Ukrainian drones struck air bases deep inside Russia, targeting nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

“The scale of the operation dubbed "Spider Web" became clear almost as soon as it began, with explosions reported across several time zones all over Russia - as far north as Murmansk above the Arctic Circle, and as far east as Irkutsk, over 4,000km from Ukraine.

“The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks had occurred in five regions of Russia - Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur - but stated planes had been damaged only in Murmansk and Irkutsk, while in other locations the attacks had been repelled.”

How Ukraine carried out daring 'Spider Web' attack on Russian bombers, Laura Gozzi & BBC Verify, 2 June 2025, BBC News

“On June 1, Russia’s Military Transport Aviation Day, a significant holiday for the Russian armed forces, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) carried out a bold and unprecedented coordinated drone strike deep inside Russian territory. The operation targeted four strategic air bases and delivered a major blow to Moscow’s long-range bomber fleet. Codenamed “Spider’s Web”—or simply “Web”—the operation was named for its wide geographic coverage across remote Russian locations previously thought to be beyond the reach of Ukraine’s long-range drone capabilities.

“Using small striking drones covertly smuggled into Russia and launched from hidden compartments inside cargo trucks, the operation struck more than 40 high-value aircraft—including strategic bombers Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3, and A-50 planes used for launching and coordinating missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. The meticulously planned operation marks a significant milestone in Ukraine’s evolving asymmetric warfare capabilities and signals a major vulnerability in Russia’s rear defenses.”

How Ukraine’s Operation “Spider’s Web” Redefines Asymmetric Warfare, Kateryna Bondar, June 2, 2025, Center for Strategic & International Studies

“On 1 June 2025, Ukraine pulled off what many now see as the boldest and most technologically advanced operation of the war: Operation Spiderweb. In a display of ingenuity and precision, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) deployed 117 first-person view (FPV) drones in a sweeping, coordinated strike against five major Russian air bases—stretching from Irkutsk and Murmansk to Ryazan, Ivanovo, and Amur. The damage was staggering. According to reports, 41 aircraft were destroyed or disabled, including some of Russia’s most prized strategic bombers and surveillance planes, amounting to an estimated $7 billion in losses.”

Significance and Implications of Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, Strategic Studies Department, Trends Group/Trend Research, June 3, 2025

2025 – 1945 = 80 years that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) has convinced 15 presidential administrations to continue to fund fighting a potential ground war with Russia by authorizing the increase of funding to new weapons systems – some functional, some not-so-much – cutting domestic programs that would help the citizens of the country.

June 1, 2025, Ukraine through being cut off from resources typically supplied by the MIC, became resourceful: the “bombs” dropped on Russian aircraft were 3D printed.

The Defense Budget for FY26 was nearly a trillion dollars (as much as Elon Musk will eventually be worth). The Defense Secretary is asking for $200 billion so that the bloated defense budget can “kill bad guys.”

The “Moore's Law Exemption”

Dr. Gordon Moore, emeritus founder of Intel, and former of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1965, said: “The number of transistors and other components on integrated circuits will double every year for the next 10 years.”

Well past 1975, the transistors kept doubling and shrinking. The “Moore’s Law Limit” was supposed to be 7 nanometers (nano = 10^-9, or 10^-9 meters). Current production is 3 and 2-nanometers (nm) modes this year, with plans to go to 1.4 and 1 nm (marketing terms vs physical measurement). Quantum computing is also making an impact.

Related links:

It costs between $1.1 million and over $ 13 million to train fighter pilots, depending on the size of the aircraft; fighter pilots are the most expensive. One of two crew members from a fighter jet shot down over Iran has been rescued, the other is alive in Iran, and will likely be used for propaganda purposes.

All this advanced technology in our hip pockets, and we’re funding MIC to fight the Russians in a land war in Europe.

On June 1, 2025, we all should have become aware of an eight-decade-long scam that only enriches defense contractors.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is a science fiction novel about Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a brilliant child recruited by the International Fleet to train at Battle School for a future war against an alien race called "buggers." Through intense simulations and isolation, Ender becomes a master strategist but is manipulated into unknowingly committing genocide, ultimately seeking redemption.

We could reduce the defense budget by having pimply teenagers with frightening hand-eye coordination, like Ender, complete our missions remotely, no pilots down behind "enemy" lines, no prisoners for propaganda purposes. 1945 is now 81 years ago. We’ve transistorized via Moore's Law since then, and been simultaneously gaslit by the MIC/Congressional Industrial Complex. That's not the "deep state": it's marketing

A branching blood vessel network fabricated using the ESCAPE process to form complex tissues. This image shows the cell nuclei color-coded based on height.

Credit: Subramanian Sundaram, Boston University and Wyss Institute, Harvard University

Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Biology, Tissue Engineering

The manufacturing technique known as 3D printing, now being used everywhere, from aircraft manufacturers to public libraries, has never been more affordable or accessible. Biomedical engineering has particularly benefited from 3D printing as prosthetic devices can be produced and tested more rapidly than ever before. However, 3D printing still faces challenges when printing living tissues, partly due to their complexity and fragility.

Now, with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, a research team at Boston University (BU) and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University has pioneered the use of gallium, a metal that can be molded at room temperature, to create tissue structures in various shapes and sizes.

This innovative approach to fabrication, engineered sacrificial capillary pumps for evacuation (ESCAPE), was highlighted in a recent study published in Nature, where the team used gallium casts to mold biomaterials. The scaffolds left behind by these casts are then filled with cells cultured to form tissue structures. Vascular structures were some of the first produced using ESCAPE, particularly because of the challenges faced due to blood vessel complexity. Few techniques exist to build large (millimeter-scale) and small (micrometer-scale) structures in scaffolds made of natural materials, making this multiscale fabrication capability a novel approach.

"ESCAPE can be used on several tissue architectures, but we started with vascular forms because blood vessel networks feature many different length scales," said Christopher Chen, director of BU's Biological Design Center and senior author on the study. Chen is also the deputy director of CELL-MET, an NSF Engineering Research Center at BU funded by a $34 million award from NSF, and co-principal investigator on the award for the NSF Science and Technology Center for Engineering MechanoBiology at the University of Pennsylvania. "Our blood vessel demonstrations include trees with many branches, including dead ends and portions that experience fluid flow. This allows us to model a range of healthy structures as well as diseased abnormalities."

Biofabricating human tissues enhanced through use of gallium, National Science Foundation

Medical applications Laboratory tests showed how the 3D printed material molds and sticks to organs such as this porcine heart. (Courtesy: Casey Cass/CU Boulder)

Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Hydrogels, Polymer Science

A new method for 3D printing, described in Science, makes inroads into hydrogel-based adhesives for use in medicine.

3D printers, which deposit individual layers of a variety of materials, enable researchers to create complex shapes and structures. Medical applications often require strong and stretchable biomaterials that also stick to moving tissues, such as the beating human heart or tough cartilage covering the surfaces of bones at a joint.

Many researchers are pursuing 3D-printed tissues, organs and implants created using biomaterials called hydrogels, which are made from networks of crosslinked polymer chains. While significant progress has been made in the field of fabricated hydrogels, traditional 3D printed hydrogels may break when stretched or crack under pressure. Others are too stiff to sculpt around deformable tissues.

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), realized that they could incorporate intertwined chains of molecules to make 3D printed hydrogels stronger and more elastic – and possibly even allow them to stick to wet tissue. The method, known as CLEAR, sets an object’s shape using spatial light illumination (photopolymerization) while a complementary redox reaction (dark polymerization) gradually yields a high concentration of entangled polymer chains.

3D printing creates strong, stretchy hydrogels that stick to tissue, Catherine Steffel, Physics World

A sample of the new titanium lattice structure 3D printed in cube form. Credit: RMIT. New titanium lattice structure 3D printed in cube form. Credit: RMIT

Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Materials Science, Metamaterials

A 3D printed ‘metamaterial’ boasting levels of strength for weight not normally seen in nature or manufacturing could change how we make everything from medical implants to aircraft or rocket parts.

RMIT University researchers created the new metamaterial – a term used to describe an artificial material with unique properties not observed in nature – from common titanium alloy.

But it’s the material’s unique lattice structure design, recently revealed in the journal Advanced Materials, that makes it anything but common: tests show it’s 50% stronger than the next strongest alloy of similar density used in aerospace applications.

Nature-Inspired Designs and Innovations

Lattice structures made of hollow struts were originally inspired by nature: strong hollow-stemmed plants like the Victoria water lily or the hardy organ pipe coral (Tubipora musica) showed us the way to combine lightness and strength.

Supernatural Strength: 3D Printed Titanium Structure Is 50% Stronger Than Aerospace Alloy, SciTech Daily, RMIT University

Chromatic imaging of white light with a single lens (left) and achromatic imaging of white light with a hybrid lens (right). Credit: The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Applied Physics, Materials Science, Optics

Using 3D printing and porous silicon, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed compact, visible wavelength achromats that are essential for miniaturized and lightweight optics. These high-performance hybrid micro-optics achieve high focusing efficiencies while minimizing volume and thickness. Further, these microlenses can be constructed into arrays to form larger area images for achromatic light-field images and displays.

This study was led by materials science and engineering professors Paul Braun and David Cahill, electrical and computer engineering professor Lynford Goddard, and former graduate student Corey Richards. The results of this research were published in Nature Communications.

"We developed a way to create structures exhibiting the functionalities of classical compound optics but in highly miniaturized thin film via non-traditional fabrication approaches," says Braun.

In many imaging applications, multiple wavelengths of light are present, e.g., white light. If a single lens is used to focus this light, different wavelengths focus at different points, resulting in a color-blurred image. To solve this problem, multiple lenses are stacked together to form an achromatic lens. "In white light imaging, if you use a single lens, you have considerable dispersion, and so each constituent color is focused at a different position. With an achromatic lens, however, all the colors focus at the same point," says Braun.

The challenge, however, is that the required stack of lens elements required to make an achromatic lens is relatively thick, which can make a classical achromatic lens unsuitable for newer, scaled-down technological platforms, such as ultracompact visible wavelength cameras, portable microscopes, and even wearable devices.

A new (micro) lens on optics: Researchers develop hybrid achromats with high focusing efficiencies,  Amber Rose, University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering

Beetling along: Under the influence of moisture, the color of the 3D-printed beetle changes from green to red, and back again to red. (Courtesy: Bart van Overbeeke)

Topics: 3D Printing, Additive Manufacturing, Biomimetics

Researchers in the Netherlands have produced models of a beetle that changes color and a scallop shell that opens and closes in response to changing humidity in the surrounding air. Inspired by iridescent structures in nature, Jeroen Sol and colleagues at the Eindhoven University of Technology showed that they could integrate a specialized liquid crystal into standard 3D-printing techniques, creating “4D printed” devices that react to their changing environments.

Over millions of years, many organisms have evolved micro-scale structures in their anatomies that allow them to change their vibrant iridescent colors in response to stimuli. Recently, researchers have developed inks that change color in the same way and have begun to experiment with incorporating them into 3D-printed structures.

This technology has been dubbed 4D printing, where the fourth dimension represents reversible, time-varying changes to the structures after printing. One widely used technique in 4D printing is to deposit ink directly onto 3D printed structures. This approach can accommodate many types of material, as well as a versatile range of printing temperatures, speeds, and path designs.

4D-printed material responds to environmental stimuli, Sam Jarman, Physics World