Fermenting milk to make yogurt, cheeses, or kefir is an ancient practice, and different cultures have their own traditional methods, often preserved in oral histories. The forests of Bulgaria and Turkey have an abundance of red wood ants, for instance, so a time-honored Bulgarian yogurt-making practice involves dropping a few live ants (or crushed-up ant eggs) into the milk to jump-start fermentation. Scientists have now figured out why the ants are so effective in making edible yogurt, according to a paper published in the journal iScience. The authors even collaborated with chefs to create modern recipes using ant yogurt.

“Today’s yogurts are typically made with just two bacterial strains,” said co-author Leonie Jahn from the Technical University of Denmark. “If you look at traditional yogurt, you have much bigger biodiversity, varying based on location, households, and season. That brings more flavors, textures, and personality.”

If you want to study traditional culinary methods, it helps to go where those traditions emerged, since the locals likely still retain memories and oral histories of said culinary methods—in this case, Nova Mahala, Bulgaria, where co-author Sevgi Mutlu Sirakova's family still lives. To recreate the region's ant yogurt, the team followed instructions from Sirakova's uncle. They used fresh raw cow milk, warmed until scalding, "such that it could 'bite your pinkie finger,'" per the authors. Four live red wood ants were then collected from a local colony and added to the milk.

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Fermenting milk to make yogurt, cheeses, or kefir is an ancient practice, and different cultures have their own traditional methods, often preserved in oral histories. The forests of Bulgaria and Turkey have an abundance of red wood ants, for instance, so a time-honored Bulgarian yogurt-making practice involves dropping a few live ants (or crushed-up ant eggs) into the milk to jump-start fermentation. Scientists have now figured out why the ants are so effective in making edible yogurt, according to a paper published in the journal iScience. The authors even collaborated with chefs to create modern recipes using ant yogurt.

“Today’s yogurts are typically made with just two bacterial strains,” said co-author Leonie Jahn from the Technical University of Denmark. “If you look at traditional yogurt, you have much bigger biodiversity, varying based on location, households, and season. That brings more flavors, textures, and personality.”

If you want to study traditional culinary methods, it helps to go where those traditions emerged, since the locals likely still retain memories and oral histories of said culinary methods—in this case, Nova Mahala, Bulgaria, where co-author Sevgi Mutlu Sirakova's family still lives. To recreate the region's ant yogurt, the team followed instructions from Sirakova's uncle. They used fresh raw cow milk, warmed until scalding, "such that it could 'bite your pinkie finger,'" per the authors. Four live red wood ants were then collected from a local colony and added to the milk.

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Fermenting milk to make yogurt, cheeses, or kefir is an ancient practice, and different cultures have their own traditional methods, often preserved in oral histories. The forests of Bulgaria and Turkey have an abundance of red wood ants, for instance, so a time-honored Bulgarian yogurt-making practice involves dropping a few live ants (or crushed-up ant eggs) into the milk to jump-start fermentation. Scientists have now figured out why the ants are so effective in making edible yogurt, according to a paper published in the journal iScience. The authors even collaborated with chefs to create modern recipes using ant yogurt.

“Today’s yogurts are typically made with just two bacterial strains,” said co-author Leonie Jahn from the Technical University of Denmark. “If you look at traditional yogurt, you have much bigger biodiversity, varying based on location, households, and season. That brings more flavors, textures, and personality.”

If you want to study traditional culinary methods, it helps to go where those traditions emerged, since the locals likely still retain memories and oral histories of said culinary methods—in this case, Nova Mahala, Bulgaria, where co-author Sevgi Mutlu Sirakova's family still lives. To recreate the region's ant yogurt, the team followed instructions from Sirakova's uncle. They used fresh raw cow milk, warmed until scalding, "such that it could 'bite your pinkie finger,'" per the authors. Four live red wood ants were then collected from a local colony and added to the milk.

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The largest electric utility in Illinois is rolling out a program for a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy cheaper for customers and reduce grid load.

The Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) announced in September that it would begin the testing phase of its novel V2G electric school bus charging pilot, the first of its kind in northern Illinois, coinciding with the beginning of the school year.

The utility began testing with the River Trails, Troy, and Wauconda school districts—which have all had electric buses for more than two years—in northern Illinois. It is currently collecting data from bidirectional chargers, EV chargers that flow energy both ways. Its testing will determine how the chargers and buses can best transfer energy when parked and plugged into the grid.

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The largest electric utility in Illinois is rolling out a program for a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy cheaper for customers and reduce grid load.

The Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) announced in September that it would begin the testing phase of its novel V2G electric school bus charging pilot, the first of its kind in northern Illinois, coinciding with the beginning of the school year.

The utility began testing with the River Trails, Troy, and Wauconda school districts—which have all had electric buses for more than two years—in northern Illinois. It is currently collecting data from bidirectional chargers, EV chargers that flow energy both ways. Its testing will determine how the chargers and buses can best transfer energy when parked and plugged into the grid.

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The largest electric utility in Illinois is rolling out a program for a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy cheaper for customers and reduce grid load.

The Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) announced in September that it would begin the testing phase of its novel V2G electric school bus charging pilot, the first of its kind in northern Illinois, coinciding with the beginning of the school year.

The utility began testing with the River Trails, Troy, and Wauconda school districts—which have all had electric buses for more than two years—in northern Illinois. It is currently collecting data from bidirectional chargers, EV chargers that flow energy both ways. Its testing will determine how the chargers and buses can best transfer energy when parked and plugged into the grid.

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Welcome to Edition 8.13 of the Rocket Report! It's difficult for me to believe, but we have now entered the fourth quarter of the year. Accordingly, there are three months left in 2025, with a lot of launch action still to come. The remainder of the year will be headlined by Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket making its second flight (and landing attempt), and SpaceX's Starship making its final test flight of the year. There is also the slim possibility that Rocket Lab's Neutron vehicle will make its debut this year, but it will almost certainly slip into 2026.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

An Alpha rocket blows up on the pad . The booster stage for Firefly Aerospace's next Alpha rocket was destroyed Monday in a fiery accident on the company's vertical test stand in Central Texas, Ars reports . Firefly released a statement confirming the rocket "experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage." The company confirmed all personnel were safe and said ground teams followed "proper safety protocols." Imagery posted on social media platforms showed a fireball engulfing the test stand and a column of black smoke rising into the sky over Firefly's facility roughly 40 miles north of Austin.

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Welcome to Edition 8.13 of the Rocket Report! It's difficult for me to believe, but we have now entered the fourth quarter of the year. Accordingly, there are three months left in 2025, with a lot of launch action still to come. The remainder of the year will be headlined by Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket making its second flight (and landing attempt), and SpaceX's Starship making its final test flight of the year. There is also the slim possibility that Rocket Lab's Neutron vehicle will make its debut this year, but it will almost certainly slip into 2026.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

An Alpha rocket blows up on the pad . The booster stage for Firefly Aerospace's next Alpha rocket was destroyed Monday in a fiery accident on the company's vertical test stand in Central Texas, Ars reports . Firefly released a statement confirming the rocket "experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage." The company confirmed all personnel were safe and said ground teams followed "proper safety protocols." Imagery posted on social media platforms showed a fireball engulfing the test stand and a column of black smoke rising into the sky over Firefly's facility roughly 40 miles north of Austin.

Read full article

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Welcome to Edition 8.13 of the Rocket Report! It's difficult for me to believe, but we have now entered the fourth quarter of the year. Accordingly, there are three months left in 2025, with a lot of launch action still to come. The remainder of the year will be headlined by Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket making its second flight (and landing attempt), and SpaceX's Starship making its final test flight of the year. There is also the slim possibility that Rocket Lab's Neutron vehicle will make its debut this year, but it will almost certainly slip into 2026.

As always, we welcome reader submissions , and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

An Alpha rocket blows up on the pad . The booster stage for Firefly Aerospace's next Alpha rocket was destroyed Monday in a fiery accident on the company's vertical test stand in Central Texas, Ars reports . Firefly released a statement confirming the rocket "experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage." The company confirmed all personnel were safe and said ground teams followed "proper safety protocols." Imagery posted on social media platforms showed a fireball engulfing the test stand and a column of black smoke rising into the sky over Firefly's facility roughly 40 miles north of Austin.

Read full article

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