Lab-made organs could do more than just serve as ready options for patients in need: with the right blend of biology and materials science, they might even be able to endow people with superhuman abilities. 

That’s what researchers at Princeton University see as the future of tissue engineering, and they believe 3-D printing is the way there. Michael McAlpine and members of his lab recently reported that a 3-D printer could build a bionic ear capable of detecting frequencies a million times higher than the normal range of hearing.