{"id":1302,"date":"2026-05-26T17:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/giant-moa-pushes-colossal-to-create-an-artificial-egg-to-solve-a-simple-tangible-laboratory-obstacle\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T17:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T16:25:09","slug":"giant-moa-pushes-colossal-to-create-an-artificial-egg-to-solve-a-simple-tangible-laboratory-obstacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/giant-moa-pushes-colossal-to-create-an-artificial-egg-to-solve-a-simple-tangible-laboratory-obstacle\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant Moa Pushes Colossal to Create an Artificial Egg to Solve a Simple, Tangible Laboratory Obstacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-six chicks emerged from a laboratory-made shell. For Colossal Biosciences, this test opens a path toward the giant moa of New Zealand. For several researchers, it highlights more the distance between a successful incubation and the reappearance of a vanished animal.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

An artificial shell that imitates the egg\u2019s breathing without replacing its full biological role<\/h2>\n

Colossal Biosciences, a US-based startup focused on de-extinction, announced the hatching of 26 chicks<\/strong> inside a 3D-printed structure. De-extinction refers to the effort to recreate a vanished animal, often by editing the genome of a closely related living species.<\/p>\n

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The device does not replace the entire egg. It mainly mimics the shell, that porous envelope which allows oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. In a natural egg, the shell also provides calcium, a mineral used by the embryo to form its skeleton.<\/p>\n

The Colossal researchers therefore added this calcium separately and monitored the embryos in an incubator. The most accurate image isn\u2019t that of a substitute mother, but that of a highly sophisticated incubator<\/strong>, capable of offering a direct window into development.<\/p>\n

Why the giant moa\u2019s egg size demands a solution that living birds cannot provide<\/h2>\n

The southern giant moa belonged to New Zealand\u2019s flightless birds. The largest individuals surpassed 3 meters<\/strong> in height and weighed more than 200 kg. Their disappearance dates back about 600 years, following human arrival and intensive hunting.<\/p>\n

Lire aussi<\/span> Consanguinit\u00e9, cannibalisme et mort : le cycle de vie \u00e9trange de ces acariens ne d\u00e9passe pas 4 jours<\/span><\/section>\n

The incubation challenge hinges on a simple fact. Moa eggs would have represented nearly 80 times the volume<\/strong> of a chicken egg and about eight times that of an emu egg. No living bird appears suited to laying eggs of that size.<\/p>\n

Why reconstructing the moa genome remains the most fragile step despite advances in incubation<\/h2>\n

An artificial egg alone is not enough to recreate a moa. A genome is also required, that is, the complete set of biological instructions encoded in DNA. Yet ancient DNA tends to fragment over time, like a book whose pages have been soaked and torn.<\/p>\n

Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Buffalo, notes that an edited bird would still be an edited bird, not necessarily a moa resurrected as such. This nuance matters, because Colossal has already showcased modern animals altered to resemble extinct species.<\/p>\n

Lire aussi<\/span> Des serpents venimeux pourraient gagner du terrain et exposer des populations encore peu pr\u00e9par\u00e9es \u00e0 ce risque sanitaire<\/span><\/section>\n

How the artificial egg could help threatened birds before aiding extinct species<\/h2>\n

The ex-ovo term refers to growth outside the natural shell. This approach isn\u2019t entirely new, but Colossal says it aims for a more stable and larger system. Andrew Pask, the company\u2019s chief scientific officer, presents the tool as a flexible incubation platform<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Critics also target the level of evidence. Louise Johnson, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Reading, notes that the announcement still rests on limited published data. Without a peer-reviewed article, it is difficult to assess the true reach of the device.<\/p>\n

This path could serve before de-extinction. Nicola Hemmings, an avian reproduction specialist at the University of Sheffield, emphasizes living species more. For threatened birds, preserving reproductive cells and improving incubation could have a measurable impact on populations tracked one by one.<\/p>\n

Lire aussi<\/span> Un poisson utilise son reflet pour \u00e9viter un combat et aide \u00e0 repenser la conscience animale chez les esp\u00e8ces marines<\/span><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1527,1007,1526,1528,536,1530,1524,1531,1525,219,515,1529],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-artificial","tag-colossal","tag-create","tag-egg","tag-giant","tag-laboratory","tag-moa","tag-obstacle","tag-pushes","tag-simple","tag-solve","tag-tangible","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}