Showing results by narrator "John N. Gully" in Politics & Social Sciences

In January 1994, Eileen Tessier told Jack McCullough's half sister Janet Tessier that he, her son, kidnapped seven-year-old Maria Ridulph from their neighborhood in Sycamore, Illinois, and killed her in December 1957. It was a case that tore the child’s family apart as well as dividing and terrifying the town as the days, then the months, and finally the years passed with no arrest. In 2008 the Illinois state police reopened the case against Jack after receiving an email from Janet Tessier about their mother's deathbed confession. 

In this extremely timely, important, and compelling audiobook, Daniel Wagner redefines what terrorism has become in the 21st century. Unlike more conventional types of terrorism, in which the perpetrator seeks recognition and reveals his or her identity, with virtual terrorism, the identity of the person, group, or government responsible for acts of terror is deliberately hidden in an anonymous, borderless, and lawless world.  

Intelligence and Surprise Attack examines why surprise attacks often succeed even though, in most cases, warnings are available beforehand. Erik J. Dahl challenges the conventional wisdom about intelligence failure, which holds that attacks succeed because important warnings get lost amid noise or because intelligence officials lack the imagination and collaboration to connect the dots of available information.

In 1971 and 1972, a deadly predator stalked the streets of the nation’s capital. His targets were young girls who he kidnapped, raped, and left their remains along busy roadways in plain view. Some of his victims he held captive for days, others only a few minutes. Seven victims ranging from the ages of 10 to 18 died in his hands. Then, as mysteriously as he started, the Freeway Phantom stopped.

Unusual Punishment details the explosive story of failed reform at one Washington State penitentiary as well as the complex, challenging, and painful path back from chaos.

Paul John Knowles, nicknamed the Casanova Killer, went on a four-month killing spree in 1974. He still remains one of the lesser known serial killers of his generation. Learn all about this psychopath who wanted fame before his life ended.

Brian Stidham fell in love with Tucson, Arizona, the minute he came to town. A young and talented eye surgeon, he accepted a job with an established eye surgeon to take over his pediatric patients. Brad Schwartz, the doctor who hired Brian, was ambitious and possessed surgical skills few others had. But he was a troubled man. Within a year of Stidham’s arrival in Tucson, the medical relationship would be severed by Schwartz’s personal troubles.  

Although countless books have been made into films, this may be the first time a screenplay is released as a book with the explicit purpose of enlisting a producer and financing for the film. Free Will - Moving Beyond the Illusion is not just about producing a full-length theatrical-release documentary. This book is about explaining to the world in a variety of ways that virtually everyone can understand and relate to, why nothing we humans think, feel, say, or do is ever up to us.  

As the sun rises over the quiet city of Kingston, New York, on July 12, 1988, a local transient discovers the remains of 19-year-old Anna Kithcart. She was strangled and beaten to death, with the letters "KKK" carved into her thighs. While her heartbroken family mourns, and the police work around the clock to uncover the truth, the investigation is complicated by the entrance of the Reverend Al Sharpton who insists that a racist killer is responsible. Only solving the crime can quell the chaos that threatens to ignite a powder keg of racial tension to catch the real killer.

Before The Beatles landed on American shores in February 1964, only two British acts had topped the Billboard singles chart. In the first quarter of 1964, however, the Beatles alone accounted for 60% of all recorded music sold in the United States; in 1964 and 1965 British acts occupied the number one position for 52 of the 104 weeks; and from 1964 through to 1970, the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, and more placed more than 130 songs on the American Top Forty.

Falling down a hole through the center of the Earth would be rough - especially if there’s friction. A new study reveals what would happen to an intrepid traveler who jumped into a hypothetical tunnel through Earth, propelled by the force of gravity but impeded by air resistance and the friction of the tunnel walls. Physicists have estimated that if you jumped into a tunnel without such forms of drag, you would reach the other side in less than an hour.

A puzzling mismatch is plaguing two methods for measuring how fast the universe is expanding. When the discrepancy arose a few years ago, scientists suspected it would fade away, a symptom of measurement errors. But the latest, more precise measurements of the expansion rate - a number known as the Hubble constant - have only deepened the mystery.

Even robots can use a heart. Or heart cells, at least. A new stingray bot about the size of a penny relies on light-sensitive heart cells to swim. Zaps of light force the bot’s fins to flutter, letting researchers drive it through a watery obstacle course.

The cradle of agricultural civilization was culturally diverse. Two societies lived side-by-side 10,000 years ago in the Near East, where humans first learned to farm, a new study finds. Over time, one group expanded west, carrying agriculture into Europe. The other spread east, taking its traditions to South Asia.

Four and a half billion years ago, after Earth’s fiery birth, the infant planet began to radically reshape itself, separating into distinct layers. Metals - mostly iron with a bit of nickel - fell toward the center to form a core. The growing core also vacuumed up other metallic elements, such as platinum, iridium and gold.

This book revisits some simple scientific research data which could be considered as the equivalent to Chicken Little's alarm call that the sky is falling. Based on materials widely distributed in the press, the author examines how the superstitions gain a place in the scientific research work, debunking some of them with simple arguments that can be taken from most high school manuals.