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The Score: How the Quest for Sex Has Shaped the Modern Man.


The Score: How the Quest for Verb 1. quest for - go in search of or hunt for; "pursue a hobby"
quest after, go after, pursue

look for, search, seek - try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of; "The police are searching for clues"; "They are searching for the
 Sex Has Shaped the Modern Man

Faye Flam

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"What makes a man?" Flam, a science writer who pens a sex column for The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia Inquirer

Morning newspaper, long one of the most influential dailies in the eastern U.S. Founded in 1847 as the Pennsylvania Inquirer, it took its present name c. 1860. It was a strong supporter of the Union in the American Civil War.
, seeks a scientific answer to this often-asked question. Her search takes her from a seduction boot camp Software from Apple that enables an Intel x86-based Macintosh to host the Windows XP operating system. Boot Camp is used to divide the hard disk into Windows and Mac partitions, to install the necessary drivers and to create a dual boot environment.  for men to the labs of evolutionary biologists, sociologists and physiologists who study gender differences.

From mushrooms with 30,000 sexes to sea worms that compete to be the male, Flam surveys the natural world to explain why human males evolved the way they did, revealing a riotous diversity in the way life begets life. While human males have one X and one Y chromosome Y chromosome,
n a sex chromosome that in humans and many other species is present only in the male, appearing singly in the normal male. It is carried as a sex determinant by one half of the male gametes. None of the female gametes contain a Y chromosome.
, for instance, the oddball male platypus platypus (plăt`əpəs), semiaquatic egg-laying mammal, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, of Tasmania and E Australia. Also called duckbill, or duckbilled platypus, it belongs to the order Monotremata (see monotreme), the most primitive group  carries five of each kind. Male squid inject females with sperm packages that burst out of her skin to fertilize the egg, while male sea urchins broadcast sperm into the ocean, never knowing whose eggs they may reach.

Flam contends that the fundamental reproductive imbalance between males and females shapes the way men seek love, take risks and view the world--and drives evolutionary strategies.

The Score sometimes flirts with gender essentialism essentialism

In ontology, the view that some properties of objects are essential to them. The “essence” of a thing is conceived as the totality of its essential properties.
, and the link between other male animals and modern man can often be tenuous. Men may prefer younger women, for instance, but male chimpanzees go wild for older females. While the book may not definitively say what makes a man, it offers a few entertaining clues, capturing the weird and the wacky without being fluffy.--Tia Ghose

Avery, 2008, 224 p., $24.95.
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Title Annotation:SN BOOKSHELF
Author:Ghose, Tia
Publication:Science News
Article Type:Brief article
Date:Jul 19, 2008
Words:255
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