Oprah Winfrey Asks Carl Safina, ‘Do Dogs Really Love Us?’

Do dogs really love us?

That is the question that Carl Safina, renowned ecologist, conservationist and Endowed Research Chair for Nature and Humanity in Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, helped answer when he was a guest of Oprah Winfrey on The Oprah Podcast.

Safina, the bestselling author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel and Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe, explored our connection with the animal world, especially the deep bonds we share with our dogs.

The pair was joined by author and neuroscientist Gregory Berns, whose groundbreaking MRI research offers scientific proof that our dogs really do love us. The episode also features extraordinary true stories of hero dogs who saved their owners' lives.

Safina has also authored Song for the Blue Ocean, The View From Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World, A Sea in Flames; and The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout. He hosted the 10-part PBS television series Saving the Ocean (which can be viewed at PBS.org), and contributes frequently to CNN.com, National Geographic, The New York Times, Audubon, The Huffington Post and others.

Audubon magazine named Safina among its "100 Notable Conservationists of the 20th Century." His work has won the Lannan Literary Award, Orion Book Award, National Academies' Science Communication Award; the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals; Pew and Guggenheim fellowships, and a MacArthur "genius" fellowship.