Story Ideas for Media 04-06-28

News

Ohio State team wins five awards at FutureTruck competition -- The Ohio State Team BuckHybrid drove away with five awards from the final year of the FutureTruck competition in June. The FutureTruck competition was a four-year program that combined the resources of industry, government, and academic work to address environmental and energy-related issues triggered by the recent high demand for SUVs. In order to be competitive, a FutureTruck team must redesign an SUV so that it has at least 25 percent higher fuel economy and lower emissions while maintaining performance, utility, safety and affordability. In the competition, Team BuckHybrid earned fifth place for its hybrid-electric Ford Explorer that established 30 percent higher fuel economy than the current vehicle on the market. In addition, the team earned four other awards, including first places in dynamic handling and in The Mathworks Modeling and Simulation Award. Contact: Larry Slone, OSU FutureTruck Team Leader, (513) 673-5460; or Gina Langen, College of Engineering, (614) 688-4423.

Experts

Scholar can comment on Supreme Court decisions relating to Miranda rights violations -- Joshua Dressler, an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of criminal law and procedure from Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law, can discuss Monday’s (6/28) two U.S. Supreme Court decisions relating to criminal suspects’ Miranda rights. In the Missouri v. Seibert case, police deliberately failed to give Miranda warnings until they obtained a confession, after which they gave the warnings and obtained incriminating statements again from the suspect. They sought to use the second set of statements. The Court, 5-4, rejected this law enforcement technique. In U.S. v. Patane, the Supreme Court ruled that a gun could be admitted in evidence, although it was a obtained as a result of a statement secured without Miranda warnings. The Court allowed the evidence to be used. Dressler, who is consistently ranked among the top five criminal law scholars in the United States, says the cases show how deeply divided the Supreme Court is about the Miranda rule. But the Seibert case potentially “has sent an important and rare message to law enforcement that even this Court, or at least five justices on the Court, are unwilling to see Miranda eviscerated by deliberate police misconduct.” And yet, he says, there is so little agreement among the justices that these cases fail to give police the type of clear advice they need. Contact: Joshua Dressler, Moritz College of Law, (614) 688-3145.

Research

Stem-cell debate heats up, public still uniformed and undecided -- Public opinion about stem-cell research appears to be very volatile, and could be swayed in either direction, according to a researcher who recently studied poll results on the issue. “Polls show that the public doesn’t know much about the science or the policy surrounding stem-cell research, and that means they really haven’t solidified their opinions,” said Matthew Nisbet, an assistant professor of journalism and communication. Stem-cell research may become a major issue again because of Ronald Reagan’s recent death and bout with Alzheimer’s disease. Some are using Reagan’s death as an opportunity to push for support for the controversial research, which proponents argue could help find a cure for Alzheimer’s and other diseases. Contact: Jeff Grabmeier, University Relations, (614) 292-8457.

The person listed as Contact will have the best information about the story. Call on our media relations staff for help with any Ohio State story – Elizabeth Conlisk, (614) 292-3040; Liz Cook, (614) 292-7276; Amy Murray, (614) 292-8385, and Shannon Wingard, (614) 247-6821.