Yorghos apostolopoulos was at his office at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta last October when his red voice-mail light started glowing. When he picked up the phone, he heard a somber voice. "We need to speak," said the caller, a program officer at the National Institutes of Health, which funds Apostolopoulos's research on infectious disease. Her voice was drained of its usual casualness. "Don't have any of your assistants call." she said. "I want to speak with you personally." Apostolopoulos is a confident Athenian with a mop of salf-and-Pepper hair and an intensity that belies his compact frame. With the NIH's help, he has been pursuing a cutting-edge question about human behavior: How do networks of people―in particular, long-haul truck drivers―work together to accelerate the spread of an epidemic, even when some of them don't know one another? Epidemiologists have long connected the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa with truckers who get infected on the road does the same hold true in the United States?
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机译：去年10月，Yorghos apostolopoulos当时在亚特兰大埃默里大学医学院的办公室里，他的红色语音信箱灯开始发光。拿起电话时，他听到了沉闷的声音。呼叫者说：“我们需要发言。”该呼叫者是美国国立卫生研究院（National Institutes of Health）的计划官员，该基金会为阿波斯托洛波洛斯（Apostolopoulos）对传染病的研究提供资金。她的声音平时很随意。 “您的助手没有电话。”她说。 “我想和你个人谈谈。”阿波斯托洛普洛斯（Apostolopoulos）是位自信的雅典人，拖把和辣椒的头发拖得很紧，强度却掩盖了他紧凑的身材。在NIH的帮助下，他一直在追寻有关人类行为的前沿问题：人际网络（尤其是长途卡车司机）如何共同协作以加速流行病的传播，即使其中一些人不这样做也是如此。彼此不认识？流行病学家长期以来一直将艾滋病毒在撒哈拉以南非洲的传播与在路上被感染的卡车司机联系起来，在美国是否也是如此？
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