Context is everything: Why key developments often sit unused

Enlarge / Mock-up of Sleeping Beauties book cover.Simon & Schuster

Andreas Wagner is interested in evolution, that of molecules, species, and ideas. He’s a biochemist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zürich, so he knows that the engine of evolution is random mutations in DNA. But he also knows that these occur all the time. He is interested in deeper questions: Which mutations succeed, and why? In his newest book, Sleeping Beauties: The Mystery of Dormant Innovations in Nature and Culture, he argues that “where” and “when” might be more salient questions than

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