House flies and diplomacy

Two decades ago, Richard Pollack, then a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard School of Public Health, embarked on what turned into an unusual scientific mission. Along with his mentor the late Andrew Spielman, Pollack traveled to the Dead Sea to tackle an infestation of house flies on both the Israeli and Jordanian side. He left with unexpected lessons in human as well as fly behavior.

Pollack, now an instructor at HSPH, told this story live before an audience in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 27, 2013 as part of a Story Collider event sponsored by WBUR.

Listen to the podcast and read a transcript on WBUR’s TheArtery