- Slightly misleading title: It's an Artificial Eggshell/Membrane.
They took regular eggs, broke the shell/membrane and emptied the contents into a silicone based eggshell/membrane for incubation.
Still good science, but greatly tempered implications. Allegedly a group of Japanese school students did this previously using cellophane wrap.
- This was a highschool science project from years ago.
JAPANESE STUDENTS HATCH A HEN'S EGG WITHOUT A SHELL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAJDTYUw0sk
by daniel_iversen
4 subcomments
- I've just started listening to the book "Brave new world" (no spoilers please!) and this is literally how the book begins (but with humans) - what could possibly go wrong!
- > says Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who was not involved in the research. “We could better help millions of birds every year by solving the more immediate threats of disappearing habitats, collisions with building windows, and prowling outdoor cats,”
Yes. Even if they stuck it at the end, it shows good journalism to call this out.
by thunderbong
0 subcomment
- https://archive.is/FwKsk
- So the question of what came first is answered then?
- Is this a company and not a research lab doing this? What's the economic imperative for funding this?
by lekevicius
1 subcomments
- I always knew that egg came first.
by jeroenvlek
1 subcomments
- Am I the only one wondering if it's 26 chickens at once from a single artificial egg or they just succeeded 26 times with different eggs? Rationally it probably has to be the latter, but the title confuses me.
by guerrilla
4 subcomments
- The future is getting creepier by the day. You know this'll be used in food farming.
- Colossal Biosciences has other ongoing projects including reviving the "Red Wolf" using DNA from coyote/wolf hybrids and CRISPR. They also want to introduce a Wooly Mammoth/elephant hybrid.
The company was founded by George Church, and is able to embark upon these projects thanks to deep-pocketed investors and skirting/bypassing traditional approaches aligned with federal programs and the Endangered Species Act. The following MIT Technology Review article covers the wolf project in detail:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/20/1135222/red-wolv... (paywall)
Colossal Biosciences
and its goal of resurrecting extinct bird species
"bird species"?C'mon.
They want to do a Jurassic Park.
- life finds a way
- How will they resurrect a dodo? Is the idea that they have some DNA somewhere?
by VladVladikoff
3 subcomments
- This article is so strange. It is written by the company, but written in a way that an outsider would write.
> Colossal has not released its hatch rate for the 26 chickens, which limits direct comparison to prior shell-free systems. The announcement was also made without an accompanying peer-reviewed paper or publicly released dataset, meaning independent scientists have not yet been able to evaluate the underlying methodology.
- [flagged]
- For a sec there I thought the National Enquirer had gotten a new lease on life.
- So, this means the egg came first, right?
by iwontberude
1 subcomments
- Have we already forgotten about chaos theory?
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