Mind Reviews; October/November 2008; Scientific American Mind; by Melinda Wenner, Hal Arkowitz, Victoria Stern, Jascha Hoffman; 2 Page(s)

There are two types of romantics: those who enjoy love and simply go along for the ride, and those who analyze and obsess about the whole process before it even begins. If you¿re the latter, get excited: there¿s fun reading in store from science writer Jena Pincott.

Geared toward female readers, Pincott¿s book tackles 95 burning questions about sex, love and attraction. Among the most interesting are the hidden agendas behind men¿s terrible pickup lines, the reasons men rarely give women useful gifts and why regular physical contact with semen makes women happier. Although some of Pincott¿s explanations are based on neuroscience¿such as functional MRI studies and chemical analyses¿most come from the controversial field of evolutionary biology, which attempts to explain human behaviors based on the reasons evolution might have made them common over millions of years. For example, evolutionary biologists believe that women have orgasms because the contractions ¿suck up¿ more sperm, increasing the chance of conception.