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7 January 2012 | NewScientist | 43

Sex on the brainDirty Minds: How our brains influence love, sex, and relationships by Kayt Sukel, Free Press, $25

Reviewed by Rowan Hooper

TOWARDS the end of this detailed but frustrating book, there is a Yoda-like pronouncement from Semir Zeki, a neuroaestheticist at University

College London: “There is a

relationship between love, beauty and desire. Hate too. Beauty often leads to desire, which can lead to love. Love may lead to hate.”

The inconclusive nature of this statement pretty much sums up why Dirty Minds made me want to turn to the dark side. Kayt Sukel was pressing Zeki to say whether there is a thin line between love and hate, and he was reluctant. It’s not surprising. In this book Sukel makes admirable attempts to find scientific answers – but is thwarted from the outset by the fact that she doesn’t start

with any clear questions. Sukel takes us on a thorough

tour of the scientific work on the brains of people in love – what hormones may be involved, and what role genetics plays. It’s fascinating stuff, even if much of it may be familiar to New Scientist readers (and Sukel could do with being a bit more critical of fMRI studies). But to my mind the more interesting biological questions are functional, why questions. Why do some animals have monogamous bonds? Why is it that sometimes the paternally

derived versions of genes are turned on, and sometimes the maternal versions? What is the function of the orgasm?

These are questions that can’t be answered without reference to evolution, but Sukel doesn’t go there. It’s a shame, because she is a writer willing to push boundaries with her research – including writing a great first-person account of having an orgasm in a brain scanner. If only we could get as much pleasure out of reading her work as Sukel gets from researching it. n

On the horizonTen books to look out for in 2012

Ignorance: How it drives science by Stuart Firestein, Oxford University Press. In this provocatively titled book, Stuart Firestein, chair of biological sciences at Columbia University in New York City, promises to disabuse readers of the myth that the scientific quest for truth is propelled by understanding. Instead, he emphasises, it is the very fact of not knowing that spurs scientists on – groping for scraps of insight and grappling with befuddling mysteries.

Imagine: How creativity works by Jonah Lehrer, Canongate/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Science writer Jonah Lehrer’s last book, The Decisive Moment, examined when we should let instinct run the show and when we should allow reason to take over, with exceptional results. Our hopes are high for Imagine, in which Lehrer sets out to understand human creativity, and dispenses with oversimplifications about creative “types”.

17 Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart, Profile Books/Basic Books. We had a sneak peek at Ian Stewart’s latest offering and found his shortlist of the most influential equations so

compelling we have asked him to tell you more about them himself. Look out for his feature in our 4 February issue.

The Violinist’s Thumb: And other lost tales of love, war, and genius, as written by our genetic code by Sam Kean, Little, Brown & Co. His debut book, The Disappearing Spoon, toured through the periodic table with wit and humour. So we eagerly anticipate science writer Sam Kean’s new offering, in which he aims to unravel the mysteries of our own human building blocks: DNA.

Tubes: A journey to the center of the internet by Andrew Blum, Viking/Ecco. Though it may be commonplace to conceptualise the internet as a vast but invisible network channelling through the ether, Wired magazine contributing editor Andrew Blum is on a mission to unveil the real cords and cables that link us across the globe.

Connectome: How the brain’s wiring makes us who we are by Sebastian Seung, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Professor of computational neuroscience Sebastian Seung is convinced that it’s not our genes that shape us as individuals, but our connectome – the “totality of connections between neurons in a nervous system”. By understanding what distinguishes our individual connectomes, Seung hopes to shed light on what constitutes identity.

The Spark of Life: The electrifying force that illuminates everything by Frances Ashcroft, Allen Lane. Electricity isn’t just for charging phones. It is also the force that enables thought and movement, something that Frances Ashcroft, a professor of physiology at the University of Oxford, promises to demonstrate in her new book.

Subliminal: How your unconscious mind rules your behaviour by Leonard Mlodinow, Allen Lane/Pantheon. Physicist, science writer and Hollywood screenwriter Leonard Mlodinow is out to explore how important the unconscious is in shaping the way we process the world.

Gravity’s Engines: How bubble-blowing black holes rule galaxies, stars, and life in the cosmos by Caleb Scharf, Scientific American/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Director of astrobiology at Columbia University in New York City, Caleb Scharf knows a thing or two about black holes. In this book, he aims to explain how these cosmic crunchers are also hubs of explosive activity.

The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson, W. W. Norton. Sociobiologist and emeritus professor of entomology at Harvard University, Edward O. Wilson has penned more than 25 books over the course of his career. This latest work, tackling the origin of the human condition, may be his most ambitious yet. nSE

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