SciSchmooze
Kishore Hari
16 February 202
Hello again, friends of science!
Valentine’s Day was yesterday, but the science of love doesn’t take a day off.
Just in time for the season, UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center launched a wonderful new podcast series: The Science of Love, hosted by Geena Davis. Over three episodes, the series explores how love is expressed through caregiving, friendship, romantic attachment, and shared experience, and how these connections leave measurable effects on the brain, body, and even the microbiome. It’s a beautiful reminder that love is far bigger than romance.
And love has a close scientific cousin: beauty. A sweeping new international study from the Global Flourishing Study, spanning 22 countries and over 130,000 participants, finds that regularly experiencing beauty, whether in nature, music, art, or the world around us, is meaningfully associated with human flourishing. Not as a luxury, but as something closer to a necessity. This Tuesday, legendary designer Stefan Sagmeister brings exactly this idea to the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. A two-time Grammy winner who has spoken at TED five times, Sagmeister has spent his career asking what happiness and beauty actually mean in human life and making the case that they matter far more than we give them credit for. In a year when the news can feel relentless, his talk “Finally, something good” sounds just about right.
Speaking of love: this Wednesday brings a delightful livestream from the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance, where author Scott Harris discusses his new book Why We Love Birds: 52 Birders on Birding, featuring interviews with legendary birders including Kenn Kaufman, Sy Montgomery, and Pete Dunne about their spark birds, nemesis birds, and favorite birding days. It turns out that love of birds is good for you in a measurable way: a study of over 1,200 participants found that everyday encounters with birdlife were associated with lasting improvements in mental wellbeing, not only in healthy people but also in those with a diagnosis of depression. And research published in 2025 found that starlings form long-term social bonds strikingly similar to human friendships, suggesting the feeling of connection may be mutual.
Finally, Wednesday also brings Astronomy on Tap back to Standard Deviant Brewing in San Francisco, with two talks guaranteed to rekindle your sense of cosmic wonder: one on who owns the night sky and the growing space environmentalism movement, and one on echoes from the earliest moments of the universe.
Have a great week in Science!
-Kishore
THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK – My Picks
- Finally, Something Good – Tuesday, February 17, 7:00 PM – Long Now Foundation, San Francisco
- “Why We Love Birds: 52 Birders on Birding” – Wednesday, February 18, 7:00 PM – Livestream, Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance
- Astronomy on Tap San Francisco – Wednesday, February 18, 7:00 PM – Standard Deviant Brewing, San Francisco
Upcoming Events:
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