A team of biology meddling boffins claim to have successful hatched 26 live chickens from a 3D printed lattice structure meant to mimic an egg as part of a quest to reintroduce the extinct giant moa
A futuristic biotech company claims to have made a ground-breaking step in their efforts to resurrect a terrifying 12ft bird that went extinct 600 years ago, by hatching a living chick from a 3D printed egg.
Colossal Biosciences, known for their Jurassic Park-esque attitudes towards extinction, have previously made headlines for growing mammoth hair on lab mice and producing so-called extinct dire-wolf pups, but are now focussing on bringing back the giant moa or dinornis, a bizarre looking wingless bird that lived in New Zealand until it was hunted to extinction by settlers.
And the biology meddling boffins reckon they’ve made a big step in their mission, by birthing 26 live chickens from a 3D printed lattice structure meant to mimic the structure of a real egg.
Not only is the eggless hatching pretty revolutionary in itself, but the scientists at Colossal claim that the model can be scaled up to produce baby moas too, despite the mega birds having had eggs the size of a rugby ball.
Explaining the feat, Colossal CEO Ben Lamm told AP that he believed it was ‘scalable’.
He said: “We wanted to build something that nature has done a pretty good job of developing and make it better and scalable and even more efficient.”
To hatch the chicks, Colossal scientists poured already fertilized eggs into the 3D printed system, added calcium, and then placed them in an incubator.
While many are understandably excited by the announcement, some in the scientific community have been keen to temper expectations, especially considering Colossal’s claims are yet to be peer reviewed.
Dr Louise Johnson, an evolutionary genetics expert at Reading University, told Sky News that while the announcement “sounds impressive” until the technology goes through the peer review process she “might as well give expert commentary on a YouTube ad” in terms of talking about its significance.
Other boffins are even less convinced in Colossal’s mission, with one scientist claiming that even if they achieve their goal the biotech company won’t really have brought the giant moa back from extinction.
“They might be able to use this technology to help them make a genetically modified bird, but that’s just a genetically modified bird. It’s not a moa,”
Evolutionary biologist Vincent Lynch with the University at Buffalo said: “They might be able to use this technology to help them make a genetically modified bird, but that’s just a genetically modified bird. It’s not a moa.”
The Daily Star has approached Colossal Biosciences for comment.
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