Tammie Shown, age 10, of Radcliff, Kentucky, for her question:

What is fox fire?

Imagine yourself walking through the woods after dark. The friendly daytime trees cast mysterious shadows. Twigs crackle under your feet like sudden pistols. Soft sounds scuttle through the fallen leaves. There are strange rustlings in the boughs and somebody up there voices a haunting “Who oo oo.” Naturally, we know that all these eerie sounds are normal events, created by the nighttime creatures of the woods. So we don’t panic. But what is that pale spooky light, glowing like a ghost among the mysterious shadows? That is fox fire. Actually, it is nothing scarier than a colony of fungus plants, thriving on a patch of decaying wood. They may be called Armillaria mellea, or by some other fancy scientific name. Many types of fungus and bacteria can give off a soft luminous light of their own. In the bright light of day, we do not notice them. But after dark, they glow with the spooky light we call fox fire