For 30 years, Alaska's northern fur seal population has not increased. But the ocean mammals are appearing in growing numbers in one unlikely place-a small island that forms the tip of an active undersea volcano. Bogoslof Island is distant and unpopulated. It sits in the eastern Bering Sea. Openings on the ground there release mud, steam and sulfurous gases, but northern fur seals find the island to be a good place for giving birth and raising their young.

It is unclear why the seals have chosen to live on an active volcanic island instead of other unpopulated islands in the area. "The surface is covered with these big blocks, some as big as 10 meters in length, which were exploded out of the vent,” said Chris Waythomas, a U.S. Geological Survey research scientist.

Northern fur seals get their name from their extremely thick fur; they have about 60,000 hairs per square centimeter. When Russian Emperor Alexander II needed money and decided to sell Alaska to the United States in 1867, fur was one of the future state's known valuables.

Most of the world's northern fur seals live in the eastern Bering Sea area. They live in the ocean from November to June and return to land in summer, when they breed and nurse pups. Between 1950 and 1988, the northern fur seal population dropped from 2.1 million to 1.1 million. Scientists do not know why they have not made a comeback. Northern fur seals were first seen on Bogoslof in 1980. NOAA researchers have since carried out periodic studies of the population.

Volcanic activity on Bogoslof has remained mostly stable. But Gelatt's crew chose not to camp there during their week-long visit in August. They feared an explosion could shoot up huge rocks. Instead, they made day trips from a secured boat. The crew counted the number of seals and examined whether images taken from above by an unpiloted aircraft could be used in future counts.

Painting is an ancient medium and even with the introduction of photography, film and digital technology, it still has remained a persistent mode of expression. So many paintings have come into being over the years but only a small percentage of them could be described as "timeless classics". The following are some of the most famous paintings of all time. 

Leonardo Da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503—1519

Painted between 1503 and 1519, Leonardo da Vinci's attractive portrait has been a subject of controversy since the day it was made, due to two questions: Who's the subject and why is she smiling? A number of theories for the former have been provided over the years: That she's the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo and that she's Leonardo's mother, Caterina. As for that famous smile, its quality has driven people crazy for hundreds of years. 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. 1871

Whistler's Mother, or Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, as it's actually titled, speaks to the artist's ambition to pursue art for art's sake. James Abbott McNeill Whistler painted the work in his London studio in 1871. Whistler's mother Anna is pictured as one of several elements locked into an arrangement of right angles. Her severe expression fits in with the rigidity of the composition, and it's somewhat ironic to note that despite Whistler's formalist intentions, the painting became a symbol of motherhood. 

Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434

As one of the most significant works produced during the Northern Renaissance, this composition is believed to be one of the first paintings finished in oils. It portrays an Italian merchant and a woman who may or may not be his bride. In 1934. the celebrated art historian Erwin Panofsky proposed that the painting is actually a wedding contract. What can be reliably said is that the piece used orthogonal perspective to create a sense of space. It feels like a painting you could step into. 

Owww! A little girl wails after falling and bumping her knee. Her father rushes over and inspects the leg. “I'll kiss it and make it better,” he says. The kiss works. The girl sniffles, wipes her eyes, then jumps up and gets back to playing. Her pain is forgotten.

Scenes like this one happen on playgrounds and in homes around the world every day. When a child gets a bump or bruise in Germany, says Ulrike Bingel, “someone will blow the pain away.”

A caring adult can seemingly stop a child's pain with a puff of air, a kiss or even just a few kind words. Of course, none of these things can repair injured skin. So what's happening? Doctors call it the placebo effect. It describes what happens when something that should no effect triggers a real, positive change in someone's body.

Placebos are a very important part of medical research. To prove that a new medicine works, researchers must show that people taking it improve more than people getting a placebo. This placebo is usually a pill that looks the same as the treatment but contains no medicine. At times a person may feel better after taking a placebo pill, even though the pill did not act on any disease or symptoms.

This placebo response isn't an illusion. It comes from the brain. A placebo effect can only influence body processes that the brain can modify, such as pain or digestion.

Kathryn Hall, a medical researcher in Boston says, “Placebos don't do anything for bacteria, but they can change how strongly someone experiences pain or other symptoms.” Other researchers are also trying to figure out why the placebo effect works. Ted Kaptchuk's group has discovered that placebo treatments work better when a doctor spends more quality time with a patient.