Quote of the Day

"This technology brings something that was the price of a car down to the price of a latte."—Jason Hundley, president and CEO of Zero Point Frontiers, a space engineering company in Huntsville, Alabama, where engineers designed and then successfully used their 3-D printer to produce a prosthetic hand for 2-year-old Kate Berkholtz, who was born without fingers on her left hand.

Prosthetic limbs are an option for children as young as Kate, but they run anywhere from about $10,000 to $50,000, and insurance companies typically don't cover the cost because young patients will outgrow the devices so quickly. Kate's family's insurance would have paid the bulk of the fee, her mother says, leaving the family to come up with the remainder — $3,000 to $5,000 — but the "expense was still a little ridiculous," Jessica Berkholtz says.

...Hundley plans to make a variety of attachments for Kate's hand — a separate one for bike riding, for swimming, for holding the bow of a violin. While adult prosthetics are designed to accomplish a broad range of functions and to last for many years...Hundley says that the low cost of producing each of the 3-D-printed devices — about $5 for the hand, mostly to cover the cost of the straps and wires, and $1 for each attachment — means that you can make as many as you want and keep swapping them out as the child grows.

Amazing. AMAZING.

[H/T to Shaker Erin M.]