Darwinian theory explains what happens when innovations arise among living things, but it doesn't tell us how those innovations came about in the first place. As genetics pioneer Hugo de Vries put it, "Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest." Andreas Wagner, an award-winning evolutionary biologist, has found that life can innovate itself far faster than scientists previously thought...

A scientist describes how he linked the DNA found in the remains of a five-thousand-year-old man to modern-day relatives and explains how all modern individuals can trace their genetic makeup back to prehistoric times to seven primeval women.

In this rich, wide-ranging, beautifully illustrated volume, Egbert Leigh explores the results of billions of years of evolution at work. Leigh, who has spent five decades on Panama's Barro Colorado Island reflecting on the organization of various amazingly diverse tropical ecosystems, now shows how selection on "selfish genes" gives rise to complex modes of cooperation and interdependence. With the help of such artists as the celebrated nature photographer...