T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
The Chronicle
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2012
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH YEAR, ISSUE 60
WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM
29K in NC ‘Tell no one’ about Gordon-Levitt petition to secede by Margot Tuchler THE CHRONICLE
by Tiffany Lieu THE CHRONICLE
North Carolina is at the forefront of a grassroots movement of individual states looking to secede, following President Barack Obama’s re-election, though some say the effort is futile. After Obama’s re-election last week, more than 65 petitions in all 50 states have demanded succession, amassing 675,000 total signatures as of Wednesday. Although experts doubt there will be any lasting effects of the petitions— posted on White House website “We the People”—the Obama administration has said it will respond to petitions that garner more than 25,000 signatures within 30 days of the proposal. And as of Thursday evening, the North Carolina petition, filed Nov. 9, had almost 29,000 signatures. Also currently exceeding the 25,000 minimum are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Texas, whose petition has more than 100,000 signatures The North Carolina petition cites a clause from the Declaration of Independence enumerating the right to abolish a government and start a new one in its lobby to the White House. SEE PETITION ON PAGE 5
SOPHIA DURAND/THE CHRONICLE
In a multimedia production, Joseph Gordon-Levitt ran to the balcony and back again to promote his website, hitRECord. “hitRECord on the Road with Joseph Gordon-Levitt,” hosted by Duke University Union, incorporated virtual and physical audience participation as well as content from hitRECord website—a free online platform for user-generated music, stories, drawings and artistic collaboration—through a series of short films. Gordon-Levitt announced, albeit vaguely, that hitRECord will be taking the form of a television show and invited numerous students on stage to discuss “loops,” roads and Occupy Wall Street. Throughout Thursday’s show, Gordon-Levitt showcased the merit of organic, homemade art and cited his frustrations as a burgeoning actor as inspiration for the project. “That round red record button on video cameras became a symbol, and pushing the button [became] a metaphor for my own creativity,” he said at the beginning of the show. “I can’t leave it up to people to allow me to be creative.” Throughout the show, the “Looper” and “(500) Days of Summer” actor carried a video camera and recorded discussions with audience members based on tweets submitted at his request, as well as impromptu performances fueled by content previously submitted to the site. The theme of roads was first addressed minutes
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt used multimedia to woo a full Page Auditorium audience and promote his website, hitRECord, Thursday night.
SEE LEVITT ON PAGE 4
Fracking hurts home value Invisibility cloak nears perfection by Danielle Muoio THE CHRONICLE
CHRONICLE GRAPHIC BY RITA LO
Duke researchers have discovered that nearby fracking can negatively impact the property value of homes dependent on ground water.
Researchers have broken ground on how living near fracking sites influences property value. Fracking—a technique used to extract natural gas in shale formations—has faced both criticism for its potentially harmful environmental impacts, such as contaminating groundwater, and support for its potential to provide more fuel and promote economic development. Duke researchers looked at over 19,000 pieces of property in Washington County, Pa. to study how living within 1.25 miles from a shale well will influence property value. They found that homes dependent on piped water had an increase in their property value and those that depended on ground water saw a decrease as a result of living near a fracking site. “It’s really difficult for the public to understand the impact of shale gas development if we don’t research the subject,” said Elisheba Spiller, co-author of the SEE FRACKING ON PAGE 7
by Amanda Egan THE CHRONICLE
Duke scientists have perfected the real-life invisibility cloak, but, contrary to what Stephen Colbert said, the Duke Quidditch team will not be able to take advantage of it. The cloaking device uses meta-materials to split electromagnetic waves and channel them around an object so that they appear on the other side, hiding the object from sight. Meta-materials are man-made compounds that exhibit properties not found in nature. Nathan Landy, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student in his fourth year, recently went viral for designing a revolutionary cloaking device for microwave frequencies. The development of the cloak may enable new advances in transformation optics and the improvement
of optical devices. Landy has been featured on the Colbert Report, Forbes Magazine, Fox News and on countless blogs. The findings were first published in the November edition of Nature. “[This cloak] is probably the best that can be done,” David Smith, a co-author of the paper describing the device, said. “If you make it larger, the waves get absorbed. Anything more is a long way away.” Landy initially joined the project because he was interested in the ways meta-materials transform and objects distort light. Smith, William Bevan professor of electrical and computer engineering, noted Duke had already created a working cloak back in 2006. The new meta-material has allowed the researchers to cloak SEE INVISIBILITY ON PAGE 7