Human Nature: Stories about Humility
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s installment of Human Nature, our storytellers find humility in the natural world.
Part 1: After working in the Everglades, ecologist Stephen Smith expects his new gig in Cape Cod to be a piece of cake until one winter day in the sand dunes.
Part 2: Henrique Bravo plans to travel the world in search of 30 endangered species, but after he departs on his journey, he begins to wonder if he has bit off more than he can chew.
Stephen Smith is a Plant Ecologist at the Cape Cod National Seashore, with expertise in plant physiology and plant community ecology. Stephen received a B.S. degree from Florida State University and a M.S and Ph.D. from the University of Miami. After spending 5 years working on the restoration of the Florida Everglades, he assumed his current position with the National Park Service in 2002. Stephen's current activities are focused on understanding the dynamics of spatial and temporal variability within plant communities in all the different ecosystems within the Seashore.
Henrique Bravo is a PhD student from Portugal based in the Netherlands, studying the symbiotic relationship between tiny Caribbean (gall) crabs and corals. In his spare time he likes to be in the water, on a squash/tennis court, reading a good book that might change his life, looking for endangered species, or traveling a bit. He is currently collating the adventures from his Pan-American trip into a book.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU scientist the... |
| 0:06.0 | I felt... |
| 0:07.0 | I was so... |
| 0:09.0 | And I just thought, well... |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:12.0 | Because science was on my side. |
| 0:15.0 | Hey, everybody. Hey everybody, welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true personal stories about science. |
| 0:30.3 | I'm your host, Erin Barker, and today we're bringing you our latest installment of our human nature series, which is about our experiences |
| 0:38.6 | with the natural world and how they shape us. |
| 0:41.8 | This week, both of our storytellers found humility in the natural world, whether it was |
| 0:46.8 | amongst the sand dunes in Cape Cod or in the South American rainforest. |
| 0:51.6 | Our first story today is from Stephen Smith. It was recorded last month at his home in |
| 0:56.2 | Massachusetts. |
| 1:04.3 | It was 1997 when I graduated with my Ph.D. from the University of Miami in Environmental Science, and I landed |
| 1:12.5 | my first real job shortly thereafter. And this was with a state agency in Florida that was doing a lot |
| 1:19.4 | of ecological restoration in the Everglades. So it was kind of a dream job. And so I did fieldwork in very remote locations in the Everglades. |
| 1:29.9 | It was like I said, really a dream job for me. |
| 1:32.5 | I got to fly around in a helicopter on most days to do our sampling and survey work. |
| 1:37.5 | And it was there that I really cut my teeth in doing difficult, strenuous, and really physically taxing work. I was the guy, |
| 1:45.8 | you know, that strapped himself into a harness and hung out the open doorway of the helicopter |
| 1:50.5 | to film a marsh wildfire. And, you know, I regularly endured, you know, the threat of poisonous |
... |
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