Richard Pollack: The wobbly table
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2013
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Richard Pollack finds himself moderating an uneasy negotiation between Israelis and Jordanians, as part of an international effort to stem a scourge of houseflies. Richard Pollack is a public health entomologist serving academia (Harvard School of Public Health & Boston Univ) and government service, and operates the consulting venture, IdentifyUS. He has traveled the globe to study, teach about, and guide policy issues relevant to medically relevant pests, such as mosquitoes, lice, ticks, bed bugs, and the microbes they transmit. When not in the lab or field, he often is embroiled in efforts to base policy decisions on evidence rather than folklore and fear. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast here: http://storycollider.org/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Shopify. |
| 0:03.0 | Looking to start a side hustle or become your own boss, do it with Shopify. |
| 0:06.9 | Whether you're selling succulents or stilettos, |
| 0:09.3 | Shopify has the industry leading tools to help you create, control and grow your own business. |
| 0:13.9 | So get serious about selling and get Shopify today. |
| 0:16.9 | Sign up for a £1 per month trial period at Shopify.com.com slash special offer or lowercase. |
| 0:23.1 | That's Shopify.com.com slash special offer. |
| 0:28.2 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:31.4 | Is NYU scientist the... |
| 0:33.2 | I felt... |
| 0:34.0 | And I just thought, well... |
| 0:36.2 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:39.4 | Because science was on my side. |
| 0:53.5 | Hi, everyone. I'm Ben Lilly. And welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true stories of how science has affected people's lives. |
| 1:00.7 | This week's story is from Richard Pollock. |
| 1:03.0 | The story was recorded in August 2013 at Oberon in Cambridge, Massachusetts as part of a partnership with WBUR. |
| 1:13.6 | The theme of the evening was Small Things. It was a very early, quiet Sunday morning, some two decades ago in Boston. |
| 1:25.6 | I was a postdoc in the laboratory of the late Andy Spielman at the Harvard School of Public Health. |
| 1:31.3 | We studied things like mosquitoes and ticks and lice and the things that they transmitted. |
| 1:36.3 | Well, joining us that early morning were two scientists, one each from Jordan and Israel. |
| 1:41.3 | They were sent on a mission by the respective governments, a very odd mission, |
| 1:45.9 | that being one of scientific diplomacy. Why had they come? Well, houseflies had become a tremendous |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Story Collider, Inc., and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Story Collider, Inc. and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.