Colossal Biosciences unveils artificial chicken egg as Musk loses

Colossal Biosciences announced on May 19 that its Dallas team has grown chicken embryos inside transparent, 3D‑printed plastic cups, which the company calls a “fully artificial egg” [1]. The embryos moved, piped and even hatched, though the researchers halted the run after 26 chicks emerged, saying they had “too many chickens running around.”

The device is an oval lattice printed from plastic, coated inside with a silicone‑based membrane that lets oxygen diffuse like a natural shell. Colossal poured the contents of freshly laid chicken eggs into these containers, adding ground‑up calcium to replace the shell’s mineral supply. A window on top lets scientists watch the embryos develop in real time. The company frames the breakthrough as a step toward artificial wombs and a platform for resurrecting extinct birds such as the dodo and New Zealand’s giant moa [1].

Scientists, however, caution that the claim overstates the novelty. Researchers in Japan and earlier work in 1998 already demonstrated bird embryos developing under transparent films or in artificial containers [1]. The main advance appears to be the oxygen‑permeable membrane, which may reduce the need for supplemental gas that previously caused hatch failures. Critics also note that scaling the system to the massive yolk requirements of a moa would demand a far larger artificial egg—a challenge the company acknowledges and says could be met by “putting 50 yolks together” and enlarging the container [1].

While the biotech story dominates headlines, the same newsletter notes that Elon Musk lost his landmark lawsuit against OpenAI, where he alleged co‑founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman misled him about the firm’s nonprofit status [2]. The defeat removes a legal obstacle for OpenAI and underscores the divergent fortunes of two high‑profile tech ventures: one pushing biological frontiers, the other battling AI governance.

Colossal’s artificial egg may accelerate research on ex‑uterine development, but whether it will enable the revival of giant extinct birds remains uncertain. The real test will be whether the technology can support embryos far larger than a chicken’s, and whether the biotech hype can survive scrutiny from a skeptical scientific community.