Sleeping Beauties: The Mystery of Dormant Innovations in Nature and Culture

(Paperback)

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Life innovates constantly, producingperfectly adapted species but theresa catch. Many animals and plants eke outseemingly unremarkable lives. Passive,constrained, modest, threatened. Then, ina blink of evolutionary time, they flourishspectacularly. Once we start to look, thesesleeping beauties crop up everywhere.But why Looking at the book of life, from apexpredators to keystone crops, and informedby his own cutting-edge experiments,renowned scientist Andreas Wagnerdemonstrates that innovations can comefrequently and cheaply to nature, wellbefore they are needed. We have foundprehistoric bacteria that harbour theremarkable ability to fight off 21st-centuryantibiotics. And human history fits thepattern too, as life-changing technologiesare invented only to be forgotten,languishing in the shadows before they finally take off. In probing the mysteries of thesesleeping beauties, Wagner reveals a crucialpart of natures rich and strange tapestry.

Reviews

'Hopeful and fascinating.'

-- The Times

'Sleeping Beauties is a delightful, accessible and information-packed primer on evolutionary biology, taking the reader from the complex details of DNA and proteins to some of humanitys most intriguing successes and failures. Andreas Wagner explains the emergence of many otherwise puzzling traits and speciesand also sheds important new light on the mechanics of evolution itself.'

-- Wall Street Journal

'A fascinating argument, told in an engaging and clear style, that reminds us just how creative evolution can be.'

-- New Scientist

Wagner offers a provocative new picture of how context underlies the success of natures best inventions, across the tree of life and in society poetic Sleeping Beauties is a book of many triumphs. But the most useful of its many messages may be how Wagner equips the reader with a grammar for describing the sleeping beauties in our own lives.

-- Nature

What Darwin didnt say, and Andreas Wagner, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Zurich, tells us, is that it can take a long time millions of years before a mutation actually becomes relevant to the survival of the organism Perhaps the books most important message is that the idea of a singular genius creating world-changing inventions out of nothing is a false one.

-- Irish Times

[An] excellent study The accessible prose ensures even excursions into molecular biology are comprehensible, and Wagner finds surprising depth in evolutionary history... This is the rare volume that general readers will enjoy as much as specialists.

-- Publishers Weekly, starred review

Accessible and compelling... [Sleeping Beauties is]a fascinating perspective on dormancys abundant and critical role in evolutionary innovation.

-- Booklist

Wagners emphasis on the fundamental serendipity of success resonates for scientists, humanists, and artists alike. If the fifty-part human hand can prove so versatile, what about a brain with nearly a hundred billion neurons What other skills lie dormant within, skills we have not even dreamed of

-- Santa Fe Institute

Thought provoking Wagner explains these issues well and taps into the wider stream of thought that nature has repeatedly come up with the same innovations across many different types of flora and fauna. Two thirds of the book is devoted to how this has played out in nature, and this aspect is argued well and clearly presented.

-- Irish Tech News

Author Bio

Andreas Wagner is a professor and chairman at the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich. He is the author of four books on evolutionary innovation, including Life Finds a Way, which is also published by Oneworld. He lives in Zurich.