from 1440.com

Colossal Biosciences says it has developed a 3D-printed artificial eggshell that successfully hatched 26 chickens, a step toward the company’s efforts to revive extinct species like New Zealand’s 12-foot-tall, flightless moa. What drove them to extinction roughly 600 years ago? [That’s not a politically correct question in NZ –Eds]

As the largest single cell in nature, an egg acts as a self-contained incubation system, protecting and sustaining a developing organism without a living womb. Natural eggshells are only about 0.4 mm thick and contain membranes and microscopic pores that allow embryos to breathe while keeping out bacteria. Colossal’s version replicates that structure using a rigid shell and a hexagonal, silicon-based membrane, allowing embryos to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide.The company, which previously drew attention for its work on the dire wolf, says the technology could eventually scale from chickens to emus and, one day, the moa, whose fully developed egg is roughly 80 times larger than a chicken egg. See the company’s de-extinction “to-do” list.