Showing results by narrator "Todd Ross" in All Categories

Dark times have fallen on McQuarrie Middle School. Dwight's back - and not a moment too soon, as the gang faces the FunTime Menace: a new educational program designed to raise students' standardized test scores. Instead, it's driving everyone crazy with its obnoxious videos of Professor FunTime and his insidious singing calculator! When Principal Rabbski cancels the students' field trip - along with art, music, and LEGO classes - to make time for FunTime, the students turn to Origami Yoda for help.

New York Times best-selling author and legendary investment guru Ric Edelman reveals his forward-thinking guide on how technology and science will reshape the way we save, invest, and plan for the future.

The world of quantum physics is generally thought of as hopelessly esoteric. But, believe it or not, even the most mundane of everyday activities is profoundly influenced by the abstract and exotic world of the quantum. In Breakfast with Einstein, Chad Orzel illuminates the strange phenomena lurking just beneath the surface of our ordinary lives by digging into the surprisingly complicated physics involved in his (and anyone's) morning routine.

Think of a secret that you’re keeping from others. It shouldn’t take long; behavioral scientist Michael Slepian finds that, on average, we are keeping as many as thirteen secrets at any given time. His research involving more than 50,000 participants from around the world shows that the most common secrets include lies we’ve told, ambitions, addictions, mental health challenges, hidden relationships, and financial struggles.

Learning Outside the Lines is written by two such "academic failures" - that is, two academic failures who graduated from Brown University at the top of their class. Jonathan Mooney and David Cole teach you how to take control of your education and find true success - and they offer all the reasons why you should persevere. Witty, bold, and disarmingly honest, Learning Outside the Lines takes you on a journey toward personal empowerment and profound educational change, proving once again that rules sometimes need to be broken.

The first authoritative biography of film legend Bruce Lee, who made martial arts a global phenomenon, bridged the divide between Eastern and Western cultures, and smashed long-held stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans. Forty-five years after Bruce Lee’s sudden death at age 32, journalist and best-selling author Matthew Polly has written the definitive account of Lee’s life. It’s also one of the only accounts; incredibly, there has never been an authoritative biography of Lee.

How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does this influence our children? More than we wish to believe. While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries.

From the man behind the popular Wired series "Absurd Creature of the Week", a fun, fascinating collection of unique animals and the unbelievable evolutionary traits they use to survive the most extreme scenarios: zombie ants mind-controlled by a fungus; beautiful salamanders that can regenerate any part of their bodies including their brains; and much more.

In The Innovator's Solution, Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor expand on the idea of disruption, explaining how companies can and should become disruptors themselves. Now with a foreword by innovation expert Scott Anthony, this classic work shows just how timely and relevant these ideas continue to be in today's hyper-accelerated business environment and will help anyone trying to transform their business right now.

Few could explain, let alone seek out, a career in criticism. Yet what A. O. Scott shows in Better Living Through Criticism is that we are, in fact, all critics: because critical thinking informs almost every aspect of artistic creation, of civil action, of interpersonal life. With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics - himself included - can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative and urgent activities of modern existence.

The devastation of 7 October 2023 and the horrors that followed astounded the world. But the Israel-Palestine conflict didn't start on 7 October. It didn't start in 1967 either, when Israel occupied the West Bank, or in 1948 when the state of Israel was declared. It started in 1882, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in what was then Ottoman Palestine. Ilan Pappe untangles the history of two peoples, now sharing one land.

Daniel Barbarisi quits his job as the New York Yankees beat writer for The Wall Street Journal and begins a quest: to join the top 1 percent of Daily Fantasy Sports ("DFS") players, the so-called "sharks", and figure out whether DFS is on the level - while maybe cashing in along the way. DFS is fantasy sports on steroids. It's the domain of bitter rivals FanDuel and DraftKings, online juggernauts who turned a legal loophole into a billion-dollar industry by allowing sports fans to bet piles of cash constructing fantasy teams.

As a third-year Harvard Medical student doing a clinical rotation in surgery, Ronald Epstein watched an experienced surgeon fail to notice his patient's kidney turning an ominous shade of blue. In that same rotation, Epstein was awestruck by another surgeon's ability to slow down and shift between autopilot and intentionality. The difference between these two doctors left a lasting impression on Epstein and set the stage for his life's work - to identify the qualities and habits that distinguish masterful doctors from those who are merely competent.

There is no more universal truth in life than death. No matter who you are, it is certain that one day you will die, but the mechanics and understanding of that experience will differ greatly in today's modern age. Dr. Haider Warraich is a young and brilliant new voice in the conversation about death and dying started by Dr. Sherwin Nuland and Atul Gawande. Dr. Warraich takes a broader look at how we die today, from the cellular level up to the very definition of death itself.

Zoobreak revisits the characters from Korman's popular Swindle, as Griffin Bing and his friends come together for another heist. Savannah's pet monkey has been kidnapped and given to a zoo! Griffin quickly puts together a plan to steal the critter back, but not all goes smoothly. The crew realizes animals in the zoo are treated badly, so they hatch another scheme - to smuggle the animals into a better zoo.

When Wyatt gets framed for a friend's crime, he thinks his life is over. But then a mysterious stranger visits him in jail with an unusual proposal: Spend three months in a secret government camp and have a 10-year prison sentence wiped clean. Wyatt agrees, and finds himself in a world beyond his wildest dreams, with teenagers like him flying drones, defusing bombs, and jumping out of helicopters. This is no ordinary camp.

In this series opener, listeners meet Jack and his foster siblings, Ava and Matt, who are orphans. But they're not your typical kind of orphans - they're geniuses. Well, Ava and Matt are, which sometimes makes life difficult for 12-year-old Jack. Ava speaks multiple languages and builds robots for fun, and Matt is into astronomy and a whiz at math. As for Jack, it's hard to stand out when he's surrounded by geniuses all the time.

What kind of political structure might one day enable Israelis and Palestinians to overcome the seemingly interminable cycle of violence and live in peace with one another? For many years, politicians and citizens have called for a two-state solution—two independent states, Israel and Palestine, coexisting side by side. This was Shlomo Sand's view too, but as more settlements were built in the occupied West Bank and millions of Palestinians were forced to live in a situation of de facto apartheid.

At McQuarrie Middle School, the war against the FunTime Menace - aka test prep - wages on. Our heroes have one battle under their belts, and they've even found a surprising ally in Jabba the Puppett. But to defeat the Dark Standardized Testing Forces they're going to need an even bigger, even more surprising ally: Principal Rabbski. But with great forces - aka the school board - pushing her from above, will the gang's former enemy don a finger puppet and join the Rebellion - or will her transformation to Empress Rabbski, Dark Lord of the Sith, be complete?

Thomas and Tasmin, twin siblings hired to oversee a wedding feast in Cana, worry when the host runs out of wine...until a guest tells Tasmin to have the servants fill the pitchers by the gate with water from the cistern. Reluctantly, she obeys and is amazed when rainwater turns into the finest wine ever tasted in Cana. When Thomas impulsively decides to follow the teacher from Nazareth, he and Tasmin argue - since the twins have been together since the womb, Tasmin can't accept losing her brother to some magician-prophet.