The Chronicle
See Inside Duke outworked by Tar Heels on the glass Page 6
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
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2018
DUKECHRONICLE.COM
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH YEAR, ISSUE 54
FIRST BLOOD
Sanjeev Dasgupta | Sports Photography Editor
CHAPEL HILL—It all seemed too easy. For most of the first half, Duke owned the sharp hickory and baby blue floor to the point that it probably should have been painted Duke blue. Against the best rebounding team in the country, the Blue Devils secured almost every board and point in the paint. The result: they were in position to put the game away before the half. And just as quickly as they jumped ahead, their stranglehold on the game vanished. No. 9 Duke fell apart against No. 21 North Carolina at the Dean E. Smith Center, letting a 40-28 lead ooze away from its grasp to fall 82-78. The Tar Heels made the Blue Devil defense look malleable, turning the ball over just twice and owning the hardwood beyond the arc. Cameron Johnson and Kenny Williams combined to shoot 10-of-20 from long range, slamming the door
North Carolina’s run to start second half too much for Blue Devils to overcome By Ben Leonard Blue Zone Editor
on the Blue Devils’ fingers. After cutting a double-digit lead in half at the end of the first half, North Carolina went on a 23-8 run to start the second half that electrified Tar Heel fans and put Duke on its heels, down as many as 10. After getting trounced on the boards in the early going, Carolina righted the ship during the run and sailed on to win the rebounding battle behind an astonishing 15 second-half offensive rebounds. Duke had 11—total. “It’s these runs. It seems like every game we’ve played, they happen,” senior captain Grayson Allen said. “I haven’t seen a game this year where a team hasn’t gone on a run for stretch. It doesn’t matter if it’s three minutes or 10 minutes, it happens every single game. I don’t know what it is, but we can’t lose our focus.” See M. BASKETBALL on Page 7
Nicholas School receives $954,000 from DOD to study drones By Bill McCarthy Staff Reporter
The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded researchers at the Nicholas School of the Environment $954,000 to determine whether drones can help the military monitor forest fires and manage storm damage at coastal installations. Researchers at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences and Attollo LLC–a local company specializing in unmanned aircraft systems–will assist with the study, explained David Johnston, director of the Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab and associate professor of the practice of marine conservation ecology. The
three-year project will attempt to develop a proof of concept for how DOD land managers might harness high-resolution imaging to track the effects of storms, fires and military activity. “This is a demonstration project,” wrote Antonio Rodriguez, co-principal investigator and professor at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences, in an email. “The largest benefit will be developing protocols and operating procedures that the DOD can use to integrate [unmanned aerial vehicles] into their management activities, in this case, coastal and fire management.” The drones are not too extravagant– Rodriguez said they are “maybe one step above
what a hobbyist would purchase”–but can still gather data with speed and precision. “We sample on the ground at three centimeters per pixel with very high spatial accuracy,” Johnston said. “So that means that the data collected is very rich and can be used for a variety of things.” Jon Putney, owner and partner at Attollo LLC, explained that collecting data through traditional platforms is often costly, whereas drones can be operated and maintained more efficiently. He added that data collection that used to take 10 years due to the size of DOD land spaces can now be achieved in a matter of days using the unmanned aviation technology. Rapid data collection is essential to
understand the speed and impact of coastal erosion and wildfires, Putney said. The drone strategy could be particularly useful at local sites such as Camp Lejeune, a military training facility in Jacksonville, N.C. Beyond enhanced data collection and cost, Johnston said that the main advantages associated with this type of drone use would be ecological. “If you are flying over a beach to look at the topography, you are also collecting images that give you the ecological context as well,” he said. “How much vegetation is there, are there sea turtles crawling, are there sea birds
SORRY, WE LOST A STUPID BET: CAROLINA...STILL THE BEST.
See DRONES on Page 5