One of the reasons why 3-D printers are so attractive is because they produce exact measurements for irregularly shaped objects. When it comes to the human body -- where nothing is standardly sized -- the technology is especially handy.

A baby born recently with a weak wind pipe should be able to breathe normally one day because of the specificity of 3-D printing. Technicians at the University of Michigan's 3-D printing lab were able to fashion the newborn a stand-in trachea until the baby's real one grows strong enough to work on its own, Fox reported.

"It's like a protective shell that goes on the outside of the windpipe, and it allows the windpipe to be tacked to the inside of that shell to open it up directly," Dr. Glenn Green, who helped produce the faux windpipe, told NPR.

Another key characteristic of 3-D printing is the range of material it can shape. In the case of now 18 month-old Garret Peterson, the material used to create his fake trachea will break down by the time the real trachea starts to function on its own. Already, Peterson is breathing with less assistance and behaving with the type of energy expected of young infants, according to FOX.

"We're talking about taking something like dust and converting it into body parts," Green said. "And we're able to do things that were never possible before."

Part of the reason why Green and others had never attempted such a procedure before is because it's not technically legal. He and the University of Michigan had to petition the FDA to allow them to use the printed trachea in a surgical procedure, according to FOX.