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

by Andreas Wagner

Overview

Why do some of nature’s marvels have to wait millions of years for their time in the sun?

Life innovates constantly, producing perfectly adapted species – but there’s a catch.

A TIMES AND TELEGRAPH BEST BOOK OF 2023

'Hopeful and fascinating.' THE TIMES

Many animals and plants eke out seemingly unremarkable lives. Passive, constrained, modest, threatened. Then, in a blink of evolutionary time, they flourish spectacularly. Once we start to look, these ‘sleeping beauties’ crop up everywhere. But why?

Looking at the book of life, from apex predators to keystone crops, and informed by his own cutting-edge experiments, renowned scientist Andreas Wagner demonstrates that innovations can come frequently and cheaply to nature, well before they are needed. We have found prehistoric bacteria that harbour the remarkable ability to fight off 21st-century antibiotics. And human history fits the pattern too, as life-changing technologies are invented only to be forgotten, languishing in the shadows before they finally take off.

In probing the mysteries of these sleeping beauties, Wagner reveals a crucial part of nature’s rich and strange tapestry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780861545278
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	05/09/2023
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,081,352
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/13/2023

Evolutionary “innovations” can lie dormant for millions of years before they become useful, according to this excellent study. Wagner (Life Finds a Way), a biology professor at the University of Zurich, explains that as environments change, gene or protein mutations that previously had no functional value can become transformational. Bacteria, for example, can resist antibiotics neither they nor their ancestors have ever encountered. Additionally, grasses struggled to survive for millions of years until the drying of Earth 23 million years ago provided ideal conditions for the plant to flourish and spread across the globe. Wagner posits that latent adaptations have played a crucial role in human development and cites studies that found the “ancient neural circuitry” implicated in recognizing tools and landscapes is also activated by reading, suggesting written language is the incidental outgrowth of those neural processes. The accessible prose ensures even excursions into molecular biology are comprehensible, and Wagner finds surprising depth in evolutionary history, as when he suggests that the independent discovery of agriculture by human communities across the globe—as well as by ants, which cultivate fungi—casts doubt on individual-centric notions of genius and innovation. This is the rare volume that general readers will enjoy as much as specialists. (May)

Publishers Weekly

‘Wagner offers a provocative new picture of how context underlies the success of nature’s 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

‘Accessible and compelling... [Sleeping Beauties is] a fascinating perspective on dormancy’s abundant and critical role in evolutionary innovation.’

Booklist

‘What Darwin didn’t 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 book’s most important message is that the idea of a singular genius creating world-changing inventions out of nothing is a false one.’

Irish Times

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

New Scientist

‘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

‘Wagner’s 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

'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 humanity’s most intriguing successes and failures. Andreas Wagner explains the emergence of many otherwise puzzling traits and species—and also sheds important new light on the mechanics of evolution itself.'

Wall Street Journal

'Hopeful and fascinating.'

The Times

‘Andreas Wagner has again cut through to the heart of a vital question.’

Matt Ridley on Life Finds a Way

‘A wonderful, mind-expanding book.’

Alice Roberts on Life Finds a Way

03/01/2023

Wagner (evolutionary biology and environmental studies, Univ. of Zurich; Life Finds a Way) presents a detailed argument for the existence of dormant innovations within every aspect of life, from microbiology to the art world. His examples come from experiments with DNA, duplicate genes, enzymes, and E. coli. The book expounds upon the ideas about point mutations on genes, social learning, and the creation of the pacemaker with stories that break the science into accessible, understandable pieces. The author's analogies work well, allowing the reader to draw parallels and comparisons across multiple disciplines within the same chapter. This interdisciplinary approach generates an understanding of timing—that innovation only succeeds when it emerges into a world that's ready to embrace it. It turns out that humans can really have reinvented the wheel (numerous times) and still completely fail to fully grasp the true levels of antibiotic resistance that exist on Earth. VERDICT This thought-provoking mix of science and philosophical storytelling is recommended for big-picture thinkers.—Tina Panik

Library Journal

‘Wagner offers a provocative new picture of how context underlies the success of nature’s 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 Lib