Soil is alive.

Chemical fertilizers, which replace three or four nutrients, are simply not enough to replace the complex system that is soil. They're "not a full health package," says Glover.

That's because soil is crawling with microbes and bugs, which nourish the soil. They help cycle nutrients in exchange for plant sugars. It's a symbiotic relationship that is the root of life, but we don't fully understand it, according to Montgomery.

"This is brand-new science. Over the past 30 years, there's been a big shift in our understanding of microbial connections and the community dynamics under the ground," he says. "It's the hidden half of nature."

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An Extensive Rift System on the Moon?

Gravity data from NASA's GRAIL mission suggests that Oceanus Procellarum is surrounded by a buried rift system.

Gravity Maps Reveal Ancient Rifts New gravity maps prepared using data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft reveal that Oceanus Procellarum, the largest lunar mare, was not formed by a massive asteroid impact. Instead, it is an area that was flooded by lava from an extensive rift system (Figure 1). This discovery appears to rewrite the geologic history for the near side of the moon. An Impact Structure or a Rift-Bounded Basin? Oceanus Procellarum is a large lunar mare with an irregular outline that spans the northwest quadrant of the moon’s near side. It is one of the largest features on the moon, with a relatively flat surface and a width of approximately 1,800 miles (Figure 2). In the mid-1970s, many lunar scientists favored the theory that Oceanus Procellarum was produced by an enormous asteroid impact. The impact would have occurred early in the moon's history because lava flows within Oceanus Procellarum are over 3 billion years old. [1] Such a large asteroid would have penetrated the moon's crust and produced a round crater that would have been quickly flooded with lava from the moon's interior. During the 3 billion years after the impact, the round shape of the crater was thought to have been obscured by later impacts, ejecta, lava flows, and other activity. [2] Recent gravity mapping using data from NASA's GRAIL spacecraft suggests a new origin for the moon's largest mare. The edges of Oceanus Procellarum appear to be bounded by an extensive rift system. Over 3 billion years ago, these rifts produced an outpouring of lava that flooded the area of the current Oceanus Procellarum and produced the relatively smooth surface that it has today (Figure 3). [3] How the GRAIL Satellites Work NASA's GRAIL mission consisted of a pair of satellites that orbited the moon at an altitude of about 34 miles. They collected gravity measurements capable of revealing density differences in the lunar subsurface as well as the thickness of the lunar crust. The satellites flew in close formation. As they passed over areas of the moon with greater and lesser gravity, the distance between the satellites was modified by the strength of the moon's gravitational attraction. These distance changes were then used to produce gravity and crustal thickness maps of the moon (Figure 4). Artist's rendition of the twin GRAIL satellites orbiting the moon, collecting gravity data and transmitting it back to Earth. Image by NASA/JPL-Caltech.