Picking up a spoon to stir your morning coffee seems uncomplicated enough, right? We simply see the object and move our hand until it is close enough to grab it. But how much harder does it become if the object gets smaller or farther away from us? Or what happens when we start using our non-dominant hand? Perhaps most of us could make an educated guess at how much harder it would make the task, but Paul Fitts took it one step further beyond just estimating.

As part of the ongoing public discussion of paid and unpaid internships, a Wall Street Journal article, “Unpaid Internship? Some Colleges Pick Up the Tab,” reported on colleges that provide students with funding for unpaid internships. Hamilton was highlighted in the article as well as another in the accompanying online report, “The Importance of Being an Intern,” as offering funding to enable students to acquire career-related experiences.

Nicholas Yepes ’15 has been awarded a Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace from Middlebury College. The merit-based scholarship provides full room, board and tuition to attend one of Middlebury College’s Language Schools. These 100 fellowships are made possible by a generous gift from the late Kathryn Davis, to address today’s critical need for increased language proficiency in the United States.

Professor of Physics Emeritus Philip Pearle was one of four invited speakers at a meeting of the National Resource Council’s Committee on Atomic, Molecular and Optical Science.

Last fall, Nate Goebel ’15 realized that he wasn’t satisfied with the way he read plays and decided to improve his reading of what happens between the lines of dialogue. In an Emerson Foundation Grant project titled “Apocalypse at Dinner: A Creative-Minded Study of Anton Chekhov’s Craft,” Goebel will immerse himself in the plays and short stories of Anton Chekhov and will ultimately adapt one of the author's stories into a short play, developing a first-hand knowledge of playwriting.

Eugene Domack, the Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, and 18 Hamilton College students left June 7 for a three-week field course to Australia and Tasmania. Three flights and 30 hours later the group landed in Cairns, a city located on the coast of Northeast Australia. Read about their trip and see photos here.

The world of technology is changing at a rapid pace and new materials need to be utilized to make further advancements.  Rare earth metals are in a strong position to be more widely used for various applications, ranging from small electronic devices to large television screens. Laura Rivera ’16 and Catherine Oglevee ’15 are working with terbium and europium, two rare earth metals, this summer to understand their fluorescent properties.

American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary: The Cambridge Turn, a book by Visiting Professor of Art History Scott MacDonald, has been published by University of California Press in Berkeley. The publication is the result of a project for which MacDonald received funding from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2012 as an Academy Scholar.

There’s no shortage of media coverage when it comes to China’s booming economic sector.  Reforms dating back to the 1970s have launched China’s economy on a trajectory that was unfathomable 40 years ago.  Now that the country has established industrial and financial infrastructures, it is looking for ways to sustain its economic growth.  Neil Edwards ’14 is examining the developing investment of China in Tanzania to see if it fosters a mutually beneficial relationship between the countries.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History John Ragosta discussed his new book, Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed, on June 4 at Jefferson’s plantation Monticello in Charlottesville, Va.