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Professor of Religious Studies Steve Humphries-Brooks was recently interviewed for BBC World Service about the second coming of Christ. The interview was based on a recent Pew Research poll that indicated four in 10 Americans between the ages of 21 and 26 believe Jesus will return by 2050. Humphries-Brooks discussed why the apocalypse is so important to young Americans.

In the DNA of every cell in your body, segments of DNA are constantly jumping and shifting locations. These jumping segments are called transposons and they usually contain the building blocks for genes, but do not provide your body with blueprints like regular genes. But in a group of microorganisms called ciliated protists, some types of transposons (called Telomere-Bearing Element, or TBE, transposons) do contain genes, and they are sometimes even expressed. Working under Assistant Professor of Biology Wei-Jen Chang, Joseph Lobel ’13 is spending his summer trying to detect and sequence these elusive, mobile genes.

Internships, whether paid or unpaid, are often the ideal option for Hamilton students seeking to gain experience in professional fields over the summer months. Hamilton’s Scott Regan ’11 was fortunate enough to find, through HamNet, a summer internship in a field that interests him. Regan will spend this summer as an intern in the offices of Merrimack Valley Legal Services, a law office based in Massachusetts.

Located less than an hour away from Hamilton’s campus, Green Lakes State Park can provide a relaxing day of sun and swimming for the casual tourist. But for many scientists who visit Green Lake, the trip is full of investigation and sampling; the lake is meromictic, meaning that the layers in the lake do not mix with one another.

Nancy Rabinowitz, the Margaret Bundy Scott Profesor of Comparative Literature, presented her research at the Open University conference titled "Classics in the Modern World-A Democratic Turn?" in Milton Keynes, UK. The conference brought together scholars from all over the world to discuss whether the use of antiquity in modern times is in fact democratic. Her talk, "Expanding Tragedy as Critique," focused on contemporary uses of tragedy to critique the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Assistant Professors of Chemistry Nicole L. Snyder and Adam Van Wynsberghe have each received a Cottrell College Science Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. These grants each supply $35,000 for the investigators’ research programs and include funds for equipment, supplies, and faculty and student stipends. Fifty-seven of these awards were funded nationally in 2010.

The Frosted Elfin is not much to look at. It is a small, brownish butterfly whose unspectacular markings help it blend in against the backdrop of bark and dead leaves and grasses in its natural habitat in the Rome Sand Plains. The elfin, however, is an essential part of a fragile ecosystem and its numbers, recently, are decreasing. Five Hamilton students—Dan Bruzzese ’12, Eddie Williams ’12, Jonathan Pinney ’11, Chloe Von Ancken ‘11 and Mary Lehner ’12—along with Associate Professor of Biology Bill Pfitsch, are spending the summer doing field work for a project called “Restoration Ecology of Common Blue Lupine in the Rome Sand Plains” to find out why the frosted elfin is disappearing and how to get it back.

Imagine looking through a series of portraits and being asked to observe the faces of each one. What if suddenly you saw your own face on the screen? How would you react? According to Sam Briggs ’12 and Beril Esen ’13, a lot of that reaction depends on how you feel about yourself.

In its third year, Cram & Scram has perfected the formula for reusing unwanted goods, and helping others in the process. Fifteen students from all class years worked many hours in the early days of summer break to collect more than 10,000 pounds of goods that have found new and happy homes, resulting in fewer deposits of these usable goods to a landfill. This year, Cram & Scram reduced landfill deposits by more than 40 percent—10 percent more than 2009.

Assistant Professor of Art Rebecca Murtaugh is currently exhibiting at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Mich. Her solo show titled "Temptations" opened on June 11 and runs until August 6, and features four series of art works.