Chicks Hatch From World's First Artificial Eggs—A Breakthrough Key to Bringing Giant Birds Back From Extinction
Colossal Biosciences has successfully hatched 26 chicks from fully artificial eggs, marking a significant advancement in de-extinction technology. This breakthrough could pave the way for reviving extinct species such as the dodo and the giant moa. The innovative egg design features a titanium structure and ultra-thin membranes, demonstrating a complex engineering solution to a biological challenge.
- ▪Colossal Biosciences announced the hatching of 26 chicks from artificial eggs on May 19.
- ▪The artificial egg design includes a titanium structure and thin silicon membranes for gas exchange.
- ▪Colossal aims to use this technology to de-extinct species like the moa and the dodo.
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The egg is one of nature’s greatest little brainstorms. The largest single cell of any species, the egg is a self-contained engine of incubation, doing away with the need for a living womb to keep a growing organism safe, nourished, oxygenated, and alive. All of that happens automatically inside a shell that can be as small as a pea for a hummingbird and as large as a melon for an ostrich. Human beings, for all their engineering smarts, would be hard-pressed to invent something so simple and elegant and keenly imagined. Until now. On May 19, Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences, which last year made headlines when it effectively de-extincted the dire wolf, announced that it had hatched a flock of 26 live chicks from fully artificial eggs.
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