Greenland ice, it seems, can vanish in a flash, with new satellite images showing that over just a few days this month nearly all of the veneer of surface ice atop the island's massive ice sheet had thawed.

That's a record for the largest area of surface melt on Greenland in more than 30 years of satellite observations, according to NASA and university scientists.

The images, snapped by three satellites, showed that about 40 percent of the ice sheet had thawed at or near the surface on July 8; just days later, on July 12, images showed a dramatic increase in melting with thawing across 97 percent of the ice sheet surface.

"This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?" said Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., referring to the July 12 images taken by the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Oceansat-2 satellite.

Nghiem had reason to be baffled, as this record ice-melt is well above average: About half of Greenland's surface ice tends to melt every summer, with the meltwater at higher elevations quickly refreezing in place and the coastal meltwater either pooling on top of the ice or draining into the sea. [Giant Ice: Photos of Greenland's Glaciers]

Instruments on two other satellites proved out Nghiem's findings — the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites

Data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder on a U.S. Air Force meteorological satellite also confirmed the mind-blowing melt.

As for what caused the disappearing ice, University of Georgia, Athens climatologist Thomas Mote suggests it could be a ridge or dome of warm air hovering over Greenland that coincided with the extreme melt.

"Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one," Mote said in a NASA statement. The latest in a series of these heat domes, which have dominated Greenland weather since May, began to move over Greenland on July 8, before coming to a halt over the ice sheet some three days later. By July 16, the heat dome had started to dissipate.

Signs of ice melt were even found around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) above sea level is near to the highest point of the ice sheet.

"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average," said study researcher Lora Koenig, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," Koenig said in a statement.

The melting of such a huge ice sheet — spanning an area of 656,000 square miles (1.7 million square kilometers) — is important for various reasons, particularly its potential effect on sea levels. If melted completely, the Greenland ice sheet could contribute 23 feet (7 meters) to global sea-level rise, according to a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body charged with assessing climate change.

When Beth Feeback bought two large paintings at $9.99 each from a Goodwill store in North Carolina, the artist intended to paint over them. It’s a good thing she didn’t.

One of the paintings turned out to be the work “Vertical Diamond” by notable 20th century artist Ilya Bolotowsky, and Sotheby’s, the world-famous auction house, has valued it at between $15,000 and $20,000.

Sotheby’s will auction the painting Sept. 21, Feeback said Monday.

Feeback, 45, described the series of events that led her to the painting. She and her husband had gone to display their own artwork April 28 at an art fair in Oak Ridge, N.C. The day was chilly and Feeback hadn’t dressed for the weather. She remembered having passed a Goodwill store on the way to the fair, so she asked her husband, Steve, to watch their things so she could go to the store to find a blanket or afghan to cover up.

She quickly found a throw and a pair of gloves. Then she spotted two large paintings done in red, white and blue.

“I thought they would be awesome canvases. They were $9.99 a piece and I just thought they would be great to just draw on them and paint over them because I didn’t like them as paintings. They were really ‘70s kind of looking, but not ‘70s in that fun, kitschy way, ‘70s in a different way that I don’t really enjoy, so I was like, ‘I’m going to paint big cat heads or whatever,’” Feeback, who specializes in pet portraits, said. “I was going to paint on them and so I bought them.”

She showed them to a friend at the art fair, and her friend spotted labels on the backs of the canvases that read: “Weatherspoon Art Gallery. University of North Carolina – Greensboro.” Her friend told her to find out more about the paintings before she painted them over.

Feeback took the canvases home and they languished in her art studio until mid-June. She nearly painted over them a few times.

“But I decided, you know, I’ll check, I’ll Google these guys. The first one I Google was Bolotowsky. And I Google it and the first thing I saw was the Wikipedia page and I was like, ‘Holy crap. I better get those up off the floor over there,’” she recalled. “And then it just went crazy. When I saw what it was I thought, ‘This painting has got to be worth something, but what do I do now? I don’t know anything about selling a valuable painting.’  We made $200 at the art show that day.”

Bolotowsky was an abstract painter who fled his native Russian and settled in Brooklyn in 1923.  He died in 1981.

On the advice of friends, she contacted Sotheby’s in New York, sending pictures of the painting and the labels on the front and back. They got back to her with the news, and asked her to send them the painting.

She and her husband shipped the Bolotowsky canvas via UPS, insuring it for $20,000, she said.

Feeback said she came close to never having even seen the paintings. The previous owners were a married couple who had bought the paintings at a textile company’s liquidation sale and they planned to put them in the basement of their home, but the canvases were simply too large.

We're certainly far from the halls of William McKinley High. "Glee" star Lea Michele, who's used to sporting knee-highs and plaid skirts on the small screen, stunned on Monday night's Fox All Stars red carpet in a plunging blush-colored dress. The 25-year-old finished off her look with a silver belt, champagne satin pumps and a casual side braid.
But Michele's red carpet coup wasn't an automatic win. Fellow Fox stars Zooey Deschanel, Hannah Simone and Cat Deeley all gave the Broadway baby a run for her money.

Miami Swim Week Bikini Almost Reveals Too Much On Bottom

Flies may not scream out in ecstasy during sex, but they do create quite a buzz with their wings. And now researchers have found these mating moans can be heard by bats hungry for a meal.

The result: Wild Natterer's bats get a double-size meal of copulating flies; the mating flies, rather than offspring, get death.

In the study, detailed this week in the journal Current Biology, Stefan Greif from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany and colleagues found bats didn't seem to notice the flies walking on a ceiling or just sitting. That suggests there's something about mating sounds that outs the flies to bat predators.

The researchers said this is one of very few studies to show that copulating animals are at a higher risk of being eaten by predators. Other examples include studies on amphipods, water striders and other aquatic insects, as well as land insects like the Australian plague locust.

In a cowshed in Marburg, Germany, the researchers video-recorded the movements of 9,000 houseflies over four years. Results showed the flies rarely fly at night, when they mainly sit or run on the ceiling; the faint, lower frequency, noise made by these movements, it seems, was drowned out by a strong background echo. [The Animal Sex Quiz]

"The faint insect echo [of non-mating flies] is fully overlapped and masked by massive echoes from the background," the researchers write.

Is it ok to use fun night lights for kids?  Why not?  If a child’s room is the haven where they are able to unwind and relax, why not jazz it up a bit with some fun touches.  It reminds me of the saying from our moms; “Remember, less is more”. That is how I view the kid’s rooms, especially with Henry.  Due to his autism, Henry is very, very particular about what goes into his room and if it will work according to his requirements.  Since it is his room, I defer to him whenever possible.  Obviously I won’t cater to his every whim, but as far as decorating, I feel pretty good about letting him decide.  Many kids with autism have trends in which an object moves from them liking it to being obsessed about it.  We have had SpongeBob and Spiderman phases where EVERYTHING had to have the character on it, which included everything from bedding to a dinner plate and cup.  That phase moved on to dinosaurs, so his bedroom currently is filled with dinosaurs on the walls, pictures and even his treasure box.  His latest thing is night lights, which is why I have reviewed more than one lately!  He has decided he wants to collect them and he cannot sleep unless they are all in his room and are all arranged on his bed in chronological order of the dates they were received. Oh how I love OCD!!

Jailbreak Collective is a really fun company that sells some really clever and unique products.  This indie company is located in Brooklyn, where I am pretty sure they find quirky inspiration several times a day!  I appreciate the fact that the folks at Jailbreak are looking out for their fellow artists by helping them get exposure for their craft.  On the Jailbreak website, you can find your very own Obama action figure or a “like” and “dislike” stamp, which I think is absolutely hilarious.  The talented people at the Jailbreak design studio imagine, dream, think out of the box and in general make people smile with their products.  That is what I am talking about folks…Smile!!  Have fun!! Don’t take life so seriously!
Colorful Bedroom Lights

So, now that Henry has a collection of colorful lights in his room, what could he possibly want?  Um…a light that looks like a big gummy bear candy.  The kids and I watch iCarly and there was an episode where Carly’s older brother Spencer makes her a gummy lamp to cheer her up.  The problem with the gummy lamp is that it was made with real gummy bear candies and they melted.  Bearing that in mind, when Henry saw me looking at the GummyGood night lights on Jailbreak’s website, he went bat crazy jumping on the bed and singing about gummy bears.  Thanks to the people at Jailbreak, they offered Henry a red GummyGood night light ($29.99) in red.  All you need to do is pop in 2 AA batteries, close up the battery cover, press your GummyGood’s tummy and enjoy the colored light show on your child’s ceiling.  The GummyGood light even has a hole in the back for hanging if you prefer.  We have enjoyed our red GummyGood light and I bet your little one would as well.

Nearly two years after spotting Gliese 581g, the celebrated "first potentially habitable" alien world, the planet's discoverers continue to fight for its existence.

The discovery of Gliese 581g made headlines around the world in September 2010, because the planet was said to orbit in the middle of its star's "habitable zone" — that just-right range of distances where liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, could exist.

Just a few weeks later, however, another prominent research team began casting doubt on the find, saying the alien planet didn't show up in their observations. This group, led by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, had found the previously known four planets in the Gliese 581 system.

But in a new study that will be published Aug. 1, 581g's discoverers examine the Swiss team's since-expanded data set and take issue with their conclusions, saying that the evidence supports the planet's existence after all.

The data and analyses "point to there being at least one other planet beyond the confirmed 4, a 5th planet, with a period in the 26-39-day regime," lead author Steve Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told SPACE.com via email. [The Strangest Alien Planets]

"This 5th planet would have a mass of only 2-3 [times that of] Earth, and would orbit pretty much squarely in the star's habitable zone," he added.

Dressed like the Dream Team, tested like its predecessor never was.

The U.S. Olympic men's basketball team held on for an 86-80 exhibition victory over Argentina on Sunday, insisting it didn't expect an easy game and not believing there's benefit to one, anyway.

"I love it. You hate to breeze through exhibition games and then you get into London, and then you start getting competitive," U.S. forward LeBron James said. "So we have a very good team. It doesn't matter about how many points you win by, you just want to play well and get better that night, and I feel like we got better tonight."

Kevin Durant scored 27 points for the Americans, who wore the throwback uniforms of the 1992 Dream Team for their return to Barcelona. They looked like the Hall of Fame squad during a superb opening 10 minutes, but their lead was down to four with 2:50 left after Manu Ginobili's three-point play.

Durant and Chris Paul then hit big 3-pointers as the Americans won after being pushed for the second time in their four exhibition games. Kobe Bryant added 18 points and James had 15 for the U.S., which beat Brazil 80-69 in a similarly rugged game last week in Washington.

"It's tough. Argentina's a very good team, very tough-minded," Bryant said. "They continue to play hard and for us it was a big challenge to try to put the game away, we could just never do it."

Ginobili scored 23 points, Carlos Delfino had 15 and Luis Scola 14 for Argentina.

Back in Barcelona, where the Dream Team won gold 20 years earlier in historic and overwhelmingly easy fashion, the U.S. players wore that team's throwback uniforms. The white uniforms with red and blue along the side and USA in the middle also had the letters "CD" in gold on the left shoulder in honor of Chuck Daly, the Dream Team coach who died in 2009.

"Those uniforms was nice," said Carmelo Anthony, wearing the No. 15 of Magic Johnson. "In the locker room, everybody was taking pictures with the uniforms. It just brings back so many memories from back then in '92."

Otherwise, the Americans are more interested in building for London than reflecting too much on the past. Coach Mike Krzyzewski, a Dream Team assistant, made that clear Saturday at practice when he was asked about the old days.

"I'm not here to sight see ... this isn't me doing a reminisce tour in my retirement," he said.

The two games here should certainly help them get ready. The Americans play Spain on Tuesday, a rematch of their 118-107 win in the gold-medal game four years ago.

First was Argentina, which won the 2004 Olympic gold medal, beating the U.S. in the semifinals. The Americans returned the favor four years later in the same round before recapturing the gold.

They call soccer the "beautiful game," but an argument could be made that beach volleyball is the most beautiful game. Wives might object to their husbands sitting in front of the TV and watching tall bikini-clad women jumping and diving in the sand if it weren't for the fact that volleyball is a legitimate Olympic sport.

But there's a storm on the horizon (or, simply put, English weather), and it could cause volleyball players to bundle up in the equivalent of long underwear instead of bathing suits. The forecast calls for highs in the 60s early next week, with up to a 30 percent chance of rain. When you factor in night matches, that's not exactly bikini weather. Some beach volleyball players are ready to take precaution.

"We need it to keep our muscles warm," said Australian Tamsin Hinchley.

Nevertheless, beach volleyball is expected to draw crowds -- some half a million are predicted to come out for about 100 matches -- despite a relatively brief stint at the Olympics. It was introduced at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

It's not like it's "Baywatch-with-a-ball," but if the weather doesn't cooperate, NBC may want to trot out some reruns of Sydney circa 2000 to avoid a ratings hit.

Jokes about the Colorado shooting are not only "too soon," they are the furthest thing from "humor," according to Canadian producer Deadmau5 -- formally known as Joel Zimmerman. So when Playboy model Tricia Evans tweeted about "The Dark Knight Rises" being a movie "to die for" Deadmau5 quickly blasted the centerfold.

Last Friday evening, not 24 hours after the Aurora, Colo., shooting occurred at the Century 16 theater where 12 moviegoers were killed, Evans tweeted:

Since her heated interaction with the producer, Evans has tweeted a slew of messages regarding her joke about the Colorado shooting. She also retweeted some of the more vitriolic messages she received, which included death threats.

The Playmate's responses ran the gamut from apologetic ("I understand and I appreciate that! I can take being offended but it got taken a little too far. No harm/no foul") to anger ("Where would it get me? Lynched? Like u pieces of s--- on here? Just showing what stupid animals human beings r") to philosophic ("offering forgiveness with a heart full of understanding rather than a fist full of resentment is one of the most amazing things you can do") to flippancy ("Love me, hate me, say what u want about me, but all of the boys & all of the girls r beggin' 2 If u seek Amy").

Deadmau5, who is known for his candidness on Twitter, expressed nothing but sorrow over the harrowing event that unfolded in Colorado in the early morning hours of July 20.