National Geographic: On a frigid day last February, Maren Friesen drove eight hours across snow-covered plains to Centralia, Pennsylvania. A fire ignited a seam of coal below the town in 1962, and more than 60 years later it's still smoldering away underground. The place is a steaming, smoldering wasteland-one that may hold a key to feeding the world.
Friesen, a microbiologist, is on a hunt for a microbe thought to live in these strange, hot soils. The humble bacterium has an unusual ability that may help farmers...