Invisibility Cloak at University of Texas; Berkeley Tents Lead to Student Arrests, Upset Faculty

Promises of the Wizarding World Expands for Muggles. First came Universal Studios’ Harry Potter World and now it seems mankind has taken another step forward toward achieving our not-so-secret ambition of wizardry: a real invisibility cloak. Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a box that will “cloak visible light”—for instance, an object put into this free-standing box will “magically” disappear. The box creates this effect by a cancellation of electromagnetic waves that reflect on the object, emitting light to reflect other the surrounding areas of the object but not the object itself. The researchers  will use the new technology to  conceal the tips of microscopes, eliminating an important obstacle in their process of recording precise measurements. [Huffington Post]

Tent City Taken Down. Students at University of California–Berkeley attempted to build a city of tents in Sproul Hall Plaza, resulting in the arrest of 39 students and one professor. Now more than 1,700 students and faculty at UC-Berkeley have signed a petition to the administration calling for an independent investigation in the police’s actions. This situation was compared to a shanty town built in protest at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986, where faculty stepped in and voted to drop all charges on the students arrested in the incident. It seems that faculty at UC-Berkeley need to do the same: Defend the students from police brutality and clean up the UC system’s record against the Occupy movement. [The Guardian]

College Corporate Shutdown. UC-Davis students might achieve their goal of shutting down the campus’ branch of US Bank. After sitting outside the bank’s entrance for the third week in a row, forming a “blockade,” it seems the bank has finally had enough. Likely the first branch to have closed over student protests, the location has been unable to open for business since the start of the blockade. One professor even had a “teach-in” inside the bank about national debt and student loans, the principal reason for the protest. Students have accused the bank of profiting from their student loans and say they will continue to protest outside the entrance until it closes for good, despite the university’s ten-year contract with the bank. Campus police have not interfered with the protests. [News Review]

Continuity Through Change. Montana’s new Commissioner of Education Clayton Christian is not talking about what he’s going to do differently—rather,  what he’s going to do to help the state’s higher education system improve. From mitigating tuition increases to standardizing the course numbering, Christian is focusing on ways to make students’ lives easier and make the administration easier to run. He plans on requiring software updates for universities so that course numbering can be standardized, making in-state transfers much easier and faster to process. [KTVQ]

Jeff Raines is a journalism intern with Campus Progress. You can follow him on Twitter @Jeff_Raines.

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