James Kinney, ape 8, of Rochester, New York, for his question:

How are molds formed?

Patches of fuzzy mold seem to arrive from nowhere. But they are really living things and all living things come from parents like themselves. Tiny molds are too small for your eyes to see in detail. With the help of a magnifying glass, they look like miniature meadows and fairy gardens tinted with pastel colors. A stronger magnifying glass shows shapes like feathery ferns or tiny grasses, miniature balhoons or sausages or many other things. These tiny molds are growing. And like all growing things, one of their most important jobs is to hand on life to their children.'

Molds multiply by growing special seedlets called spores, which are almost too small. for you to imagine.: They are so small that they can drift and float anound in the air. When they are ripe and ready, that is just what they do. There are always a lot of these tiny mold spores in the air, though we cannot see them. They settle on everything along with the dust. The lucky ones land on food, in milk or on damp clothing. Then they begin to feed and grow and pretty soon there are enough of them to be seen. That pesky patch of mold came from a spore floating in the air.