Congrats on 3 wks on the NYT bestsellers list. Next: the banned books list! You know it's gotta be coming.

Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have a term for this idea: r/K selection (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-selection ). Basically, r-selected species, like dandelions, have low investment in thier offspring and thus flourish in rapidly changing environments. K-selected species, like humans and elephants, invest a large amount in fewer offspring and tend to do well in mature, crowded environments. In contrast to what you say in your article, not all mammals are K-selected species. Rats are a great example of r-selected mammals and have been very successful in a wide range of enviroments.

To get back to your metaphor, is the book publishing world a rapidly changing enviroment or a mature, crowded environment? I think books, per se, are a crowded environment, but the Internet is rapidly changing, so we have a convergence effect here.

Cybergirls can has cheeseburger?

Shouldn't you have some sort of full disclosure stating that you're giving a positive review to a book in which you contributed a story?

The side effects aren't as crazy as they sound; there's actually a good reason why gambling addiction or hypersexuality may result. Parkinson's Disease is marked by a decrease in brain cells that release the transmitter dopamine, so most Parkinson's treatments try to produce an increase in dopamine (the adminstration of L-dopa in _Awakenings_, for example). However, dopamine is also involved in reinforcing behavior that makes you feel good, such as gambling, sex, eating, getting praise, or gaining levels in World of Warcraft. Using a dopamine-targeting drug to treat RLS will most likely increase the rewarding (but not the adversive) aspects of these behaviors, forming addictions more quickly, though it won't make you start hitting the craps table out of the blue.