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An opinion piece written by Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Professor in Global Political Theory Edward Walker ’62, appeared on Friday, July 20, in The Providence Journal (R.I.). Titled “A war with Iran would be madness,” Walker’s op-ed suggested that the recent leaks from the White House intimating a possible major military strike against Iran are really about two combatants posturing for different audiences — Iranian President Ahmedinijad for support in Iran and the Middle East and Vice President Cheney for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Kahmeni. Walker, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt under previous administrations, warns that the U.S. should not sacrifice any hope of stabilizing the region by launching an ill-advised strike against Iran.

The pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos) is one of the most abundant small butterflies in eastern North America. Favoring open, sunny areas like roadsides, fields, and gardens as their habitat, pearl crescents lay their eggs on the underside of aster leaves. Asters contain a chemical known as germacrene D, a chiral product (its mirror images cannot be superimposed on one another) containing only one chiral center (an atom that is bound to four different atoms). Amy Klockowski ’09 (Rome, N.Y.) is continuing research she began last summer by attempting to synthesize optically pure (+)-germacrene D to see how the butterflies' antennae (which contain the olfactory receptor neurons) react to the chemical.

There are lots of interns in D.C. this summer but not all of them get to watch the Senate debate. Not all of them have to. As an intern with the Coalition for American Leadership Abroad (COLEAD), though, Philip Holdredge '08 (Oneonta, N.Y.) is responsible for an e-mail update concerning specific Senate debates, and he sometimes has to sit them out -- even when they go until midnight.

Hamilton lost an outstanding teacher and friend when Dwight Lindley '42, professor emeritus of English, died on July 18. He was a member of the faculty for more than three decades. Hamilton President Joan Hinde Stewart sent news of Professor Lindley's passing to the College community.

Three Hamilton students were selected as Diversity and Social Justice Project (DSJP) Service Associates for 2007. The program is designed to support students who wish to make the connections between their own disciplinary or interdisciplinary work and the mission of the DSJP. This year's research associates are Sarah (Sally) Powell '09, Maxwell Akuamoah-Boateng '09 and Lauren R. Hayden '07.

Jay Williams, the Walcott-Bartlett Professor of Religious Studies, participated in "River Summer," a program of the Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges and Universities, of which Hamilton College is a member. He spent five days in July living on a boat and studying the ecology and history of the Hudson River from Pierpont Point to Newburg. The group took many water samples, studying the salinity, density, and temperature of the water of the Hudson as well as various lakes, marshes and brooks of the area. They also were introduced to archaeological sites, historic homes, and problems of city planning along the river.

As far as the average reader is concerned, avian flu is somewhere near West Nile virus: a danger, but a slightly dated one. After two winters of hype and no flu the fear has become a bit passé. But Allison Gaston-Enholm '09 (Atlanta, Ga.), who has a Levitt Fellowship this summer to research contingency plans for the avian flu, wants you to know two things: avian flu is potentially very dangerous, and just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn't mean it won't.

Although the Reader’s Digest’s story, “Second Chance City - A wave of refugees is bringing new life to a dying American town” paints Utica as a city that has plunged into an “economic meltdown,” Hamilton’s Associate Professor of Economics Paul Hagstrom offers some hope. His research, which is referenced in this article, focuses on the economic impact of refugee resettlement and the refugees’ effect on local labor markets on the central New York community. 

Hydrate inclusion compounds are compounds in which water crystallizes to form "cages," for example, hydrogen-bonded host lattices, that can physically enclose, on the atomic scale, other molecules, called "guests. The semi-clathrate hydrates are one type of hydrate inclusion compound. As their name implies, the semi-clathrates are only partial inclusion compounds because parts of their water cages are broken to accommodate large guest molecules. Fallon Chipidza '10 (Harare, Zimbabwe) is working with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Camille Jones with several semi-clathrate hydrates to more closely analyze the water-guest relationship in these inclusion compounds. Her goal is to determine the exact water of hydration for three guest molecules: tetra-n-butyl ammonium fluoride (TBAF), chloride (TBAC), and bromide (TBAB). The term "water of hydration" refers to water molecules that are chemically combined with the salts in such a way that they can be removed by physical means without substantially changing the chemical composition of the salts.

Associate Professor of Dance Leslie Norton is the author of a new book, Frederic Franklin: A Biography of the Ballet Star (McFarland & Company, July, 2007). Franklin is one of the greatest ballet dancers of the twentieth century and is still performing at the age of 93, dancing principal roles for American Ballet Theatre. In writing the book, Norton conducted more than 60 hours of taped interviews with Franklin and his most noteworthy colleagues