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People are using 3D printing technology for all kinds of things -- even guns! Anjan Contractor thinks 3D printing can solve the world's hunger problem, and NASA is backing him with a $125,000 grant to build his food printer. Since 3D printing food requires that food to be built in layers, what better food to start with than pizza?

In a perhaps unsurprising turn of events, the U.S. State Department is uncomfortable with the idea that people can download plans for the Liberator --  a 3D-printed plastic gun capable of firing a single round -- online. Apparently, that sort of thing may be in violation of laws governing arms trafficking. Defense Distributed, the open source weapon firearms aficionados behind the project have received a request to remove files containing blueprints for the Liberator from their site, which they've complied with. The Pirate Bay, though, also has copies of the files available for download, and, well, they're not exactly quick to take things down in the face of government requests.

It seems like just the other day we were bringing you the first footage of a 3D-printed plastic gun being test fired, mostly because it was totally just the other day. Since video of the successful test fire and plans for the gun -- a single-shot affair known as the Liberator -- were posted earlier this week, more than 100,000 people have downloaded the instructions and blueprints for the weapon. Meanwhile, proving that Newton's third law of motion holds up pretty much everywhere, a California State Senator is already drafting a bill to outlaw 3D-printed guns in that state.

Last Friday, we brought you news of the Liberator, the world's first firearm created using nearly entirely 3D-printed parts. This weekend brought the update that the one-shot Liberator -- a pistol made entirely of ABS plastic with the exception of a nail you can find at any hardware store as the firing pin -- has been successfully test fired by its lead designer, Cody Wilson. And courtesy of Forbes' Andy Greenberg, here's the video to prove it.

3D printing has come a long way in a relatively short time. You don't have to look far to find people people scoffing at the technology even today. That's not to say it doesn't still have many issues to overcome, but certain groups are making leaps and bounds pressing forward. Take, for example, Defense Distributed. They've long been working on creating a 3D-printed gun, and it looks like their efforts might finally have paid off. They've supposedly created an entirely 3D-printed gun, and they're calling it the Liberator.

As 3D printing becomes more popular, accessible, and advanced, researchers and hobbyists alike are using the technology to produce more and more sophisticated items. Crossbows. Animal skeletons. Pretty much anything that fits in an 8-by-8-by-8 inch box. Some of the medical grade work being done on 3D printing, though, makes all of that awesome stuff look like child's play. In the latest example of that sort of work: Scientists at the University of Oxford have created a 3D printer capable of building synthetic shapes that imitate living tissue.

We've been thoroughly unnerved at the idea of 3D-printed firearms already. Now, one maker has taken it on himself to bring the 3D printed weapon movement back to the Dark Ages... or at least the Renaissance, using his 3D printer to build this nifty pistol-style hand crossbow. Check out the video below to see the gizmo -- because really, this isn't a weapon unless you're in middle school and assaulting some poor teacher's sanity -- in action.

Man, 3D printing keeps getting more and more popular! The tech keeps getting better, so it makes sense that its popularity should rise as well. Soon everyone will have their very own 3D printer. You'll be able  3D print your friends, your pet, maybe even yourself! But until that day, let's consider MakerBot's new Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner, which lets you duplicate a dirty garden gnome, or at least whatever fits inside its scanning frame.

If you needed any further indication that we are living in an age of great technological advancement, now you have it. 3D printing is one of those things that's currently being explored that has huge ramifications for the future of, well, everything. Case in point, it's been revealed that 75% of an unnamed United States man's skull was replaced with a 3D-printed replica in a surgical procedure earlier this week. Yeah. Let that sink in a bit.

3D printing is most certainly going to have a profound effect on the way we do business going forward, but will it actually change that world? That's the question asked by PBS Off Book's latest video. They look at what can be accomplished in the future when it comes to 3D printing, and even what's already been done. It's a brave new world in a lot of ways, and we're only just getting a real glimpse of the horizon.

When we think of robots, we tend to anthropomorphize a bit. Years of TV and movies have gotten us used to thinking of the machines as mechanical versions of us. The fact is, though, the next generation of robots will come in a staggering variety of shapes and sizes, many of them -- or at least come of their traits -- inspired by the animal kingdom, like DARPA's AlphaDog or this inflatable "soft robot" from Harvard. Researchers are hard at work trying to repurpose animal parts that could be useful to new robots, and the latest entries in that field are these 3D printed robotic suckers, which mimic the suctioning ability of a squid or octopus, and could help tomorrow's robots grip objects, move around, and of course one day restrain human prisoners. Until that day, though, they will be pretty cool!

I messed up. Yesterday, I saw the Kickstarter campaign for the 3Doodler, a pen that lets you draw in three dimensions, and didn't think it was something most people would be interested in, so I ignored it. It turns out I was wrong in a big way. The project met its goal in only a few hours, and already has more than 7,000 backers and pledges of $639,955 as I write this. I underestimated how much people want to draw squiggly 3D plastic things.

People love to customize their phones. If folks aren't doodling on them in some way, shape, or form, they're making their own cases. As we continuously grow to be a more technological society, people are increasingly turning to their gadgets as another avenue for self-expression. One of the biggest opportunities comes in the form of our cellular phones, and Nokia completely understands. They've even gone and released 3D printing plans for the casing to their Lumia 820 smartphone.

The dawn of 3D printing was pretty good at making basic forms, and as the technology develops, the intricacies of the designs that can be 3D printed are fast improving, but not everything is ready to be 3D printed. Case in point, Instructables assistant tech editor Amanda Ghassaei has 3D printed some "vinyl" versions of her favorite songs. They work, but the sound quality is lacking. Not that Kurt Cobain's vocal track on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was ever that clear to begin with.

3D printing is an exciting prospect. Being able to turn literally anything you can imagine into a physical object is truly the stuff of the future, but the days of everyone having a 3D printer in their home is still a ways off. Even so, perhaps it's not quite as far as many imagine. Staples announced that they will offer in-store 3D printing starting next year. We hope this also means that the process of 3D printing will be simplified, because getting regular 2D documents printed at a copy center can sometimes be a nightmare. We don't see adding a third dimension to the mix suddenly speeding anything up.