Bungeishunjue has acquired at auction the Japanese rights in Jo Marchant's forthcoming Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s Oldest Computer. The English Agency Japan represented the Science Factory in the negotiations. The book will be published early next year by Heinemann in the UK and Da Capo in the US.

Congratulations to the journalist Mark Lynas, winner of the 2007 Royal Society Science Book Award for his book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. Published by Fourth Estate in the UK and by National Geographic in the US, the book tracks what our planet may look like as it warms in the future, with each chapter upping the temperature by one degree. The £10,000 prize was awarded last night at the Royal Society in London. Lynas beat the Science Factory's own shortlisted writers – Stuart Clark (The Sun Kings) and Ian Stewart (Why Beauty is Truth) – as well as Gerd Gigerenzer, Craig Venter and Steve Jones, who each received a cheque for £1,000. The prize for the best children's science book went to The Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do, written by Rebecca Gilpin and Leonie Pratt, and designed and illustrated by Josephine Thompson.

The End of Sex: The Quest for Reproduction without Men by the biology writer Aarathi Prasad has been bought by Marsha Filion at Oneworld in a World English deal for publication in Spring 2009. In this wide-ranging tour of the past, present and future of sex, Aarathi investigates how reproduction without sex is achieved in animals and explores why evolution hasn't made it an option for humans – yet. For as she puts it in, now that we have the competent hand of science in our lives, will girls still need men?

Stuart Clark's The Sun Kings and Ian Stewart's Why Beauty is Truth have both been shortlisted for this year's Royal Society Prize for Science Books.

Also shortlisted are A Life Decoded by J. Craig Venter, Coral by Steve Jones, Gut Feelings by Gerd Gigerenzer and Six Degrees by Mark Lynas.

The judges praised The Sun Kings as 'A real page turner which will open your eyes to the number of scientific discoveries throughout history that might have been lost. The real majesty and power of the sun shine through and, if you've never given a second thought to your nearest star, you will now.'

Why Beauty is Truth was praised as 'An illuminating story about the development and history of mathematics. Why Beauty is Truth cleverly uses the art of storytelling to compel the reader into taking a leap of faith into a world of numbers and the all-pervasive ideas of symmetry.'

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Royal Society on Monday 16 June 2008 and awarded £10,000.