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.
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.