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A junior year abroad in France, a growing interest in French culture and politics and a background in history was what prompted Alexandra Field ’06 (New York, N.Y.) to spend her summer doing research for a project titled “Franco-German Relations After the Iraq War.” As a Levitt Fellow, Field is working with Alan Cafruny, professor of government, as she studies the strengths and weaknesses of the Franco-German alliance in order to assess the impact of Franco-German cooperation on U.S.-European relations, and on France’s desire to pose a counterweight to the United States.

Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields and Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Karl Kirschner have received an AREA grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health to support research with students at Hamilton College. The proposal, titled "Reactivity and Dynamics of Enediyne Natural Products," brings $248,250 over the next three years to support research aimed at establishing the mechanism by which the enediyne family of natural products cleave DNA.

The fourth annual All American Soccer Camp at Hamilton College began on July 24, when 340 boys and girls ages 10-18, arrived on campus from various regions of the country. Men’s Soccer Head Coach Perry Nizzi, who has coached at Hamilton for seven years, said that a previous soccer camp held on campus only had between 95-100 campers, and this number has since grown with the beginning of the All American Camp.

In light of recent speech issues on college campuses throughout the nation, Hamilton student and Levitt Fellow Lindsay Martin ’07 (Covington, LA), has chosen to devote 10 weeks of her summer to delving into speech codes and issues of free speech at institutions of higher education.

Monk Rowe, the Joe Williams Director of the Jazz Archive, was guest speaker at the monthly Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies Jazz Roundtable on July 14. The session was called "Joe Williams: The Lost Sessions." Rowe played excerpts from reel-to-reel tapes that came from a donation to the archive from Joe Williams' widow, Jillean Williams. Some of these tapes are one-of-a-kind material, unreleased as commercial recordings. Rowe also played selections from Joe Williams: Having A Good Time, the recent CD release of a 1964 club date with Joe and saxophonist Ben Webster, made possible through the Jazz Archive.

Veteran summer science researcher Amber Gillis ’06 (Clifton Park, N.Y.) and newcomer Kathryn Hansen ’07 (Montpelier, Vt.) are working with Professor of Biology David Gapp on a biology research project this summer. Gillis and Hansen are studying the effects of different hormones, drugs and neurotransmitters on the smooth muscle contractions in turtles at various temperatures in a project titled “The Contractile Effects of Extracellular Calcium on Smooth Muscle of Trachemys scripta.”

The discovery of an Antarctic ecosystem by a team of scientists led by Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack was featured in an Associated Press article. The discovery made in February in a deep glacial trough in the northwestern Weddell Sea was detailed this week in Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union. Domack's team studied the underwater sediment record in the area vacated by the former Larsen B ice shelf. As part of their mission they used a camera to take footage of the sea floor terrain. The group was aboard the ship, headed back to port and several hours away from the site, when they were reviewing the tape and spotted the unexpected underwater world. "We weren't looking for this. It came out of the blue. None of us are experts, but we recognized the significance of what we were seeing," he said. This article appeared in newspapers nationwide including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Kansas City Star, Miami Herald and Newsday, among others.

Professor of Government Ted Eismeier is participating in a new 25-day program called "River Summer," a project sponsored by Barnard College and Pace University in affiliation with the Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges and Universities.

Philip Klinkner, associate dean of students for academic affairs and the James S. Sherman Associate Professor of Government, and Ann Hapanowicz '05, published an article in The Forum, vol. 3, issue 2. The article is titled "Red and Blue Déjà Vu: Measuring Political Polarization in the 2004 Election." According to the abstract: "An analysis of county-level data from the 2004 election shows only slight increases in geographic polarization and political segregation. In addition, there is no evidence that strongly partisan counties became more so between 2000 and 2004." The Forum, a journal of applied research in contemporary politics, is published by Berkeley (University) Electronic Press.

Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack was interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered" (7/19/2005) about his recent discovery of an Antarctic ecosystem beneath the collapsed Larsen Ice Shelf. Domack, the lead scientist on a recent expedition to the Weddell Sea in Antarctica, discussed the mud volcano, mats of bacteria and clusters of large clams. Domack's report presents the first finding of this type in the Antarctic, where the near-freezing water temperatures and almost completely uncharted territory will likely provide a baseline for researchers to probe portions of the ocean floor that have been undisturbed for nearly 10,000 years. He also noted that the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf has opened the pristine chemical-based ecosystem to disturbances and debris that have already begun to bury the delicate mats and mollusks established within the underwater environment.