THE DOWNLOAD: Biodiversity, Valentine’s Q&A

More than a dozen collections and museums welcomed members of the public to UC Davis this weekend to showcase various aspects of the natural world.

Biodiversity Museum Day included 13 different campus entities, highlighting everything from bugs to plants to raptors. See an interview before the event in the above video or learn about some of the cockroaches shown off in this Instagram post.

Relationship researcher takes questions

Paul Eastwick, a professor who leads the psychology department’s attraction and relationships research lab, took questions on the day before Valentine’s Day about relationships. Some of his advice and answers were as follows:

On finding a romantic partner:

So that means that if you’re single and would like not to be, it’s a better idea to cultivate networks of friends and acquaintances than to keep trying to strike up conversations with random strangers in the hope that a spark will magically appear.

On whether humans are meant to be monogamous:

Well, to me, the answer is “serial monogamy.” We are built to bond, but in humans, those bonds don’t always last forever. But it sure does look a lot like polygamy when people are between partners!

On why some people simply disappear (“ghost”) in relationships:

I think part of the answer harkens back to the deemphasizing of attachment and the numbness that people need to cultivate to survive in hookup culture. Part of it, too, is that online dating and social media allow us to interact with people who are not deeply connected to our existing “real-world” networks of friends and acquaintances. So if the ghosts don’t have the courage to end a relationship with some dignity, and there aren’t going to be social consequences for him/her/they, then it’s going to happen with increasing frequency, sadly.

See the full Q&A on reddit.

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