Sam Kean, author of The Violinist’s Thumb, has selected Daniel Bor's THE RAVENOUS BRAIN in his round-up of the top books of 2012 in the Wall Street Journal's weekend review section: 'For science that’s more legitimate, but still wild in its own way, try Daniel Bor's "The Ravenous Brain." Mr. Bor takes on the oldest, thorniest question in neuroscience — what is consciousness? — and delivers a masterly overview of everything scientists think they think right'.

We are thrilled to see that Ian Stewart's SEVENTEEN EQUATIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD has been chosen by Amazon.co.uk as one of its Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2012 – see the full list here. 'Nothing less than a quick tour of the history of scientific thought, from ancient Greece to quantum mechanics and beyond', wrote Charles Seife in his review in The Times Higher Education.

The Science Factory's rights list for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2012 can now be viewed as an electronic edition by clicking on the following link: http://bit.ly/S55Rm3. To print the rights list or store it on your computer, you will need to register with Issuu at http://issuu.com/explore. The fair runs from 10 to 13 October, and the Science Factory will be there representing its authors and projects at table 8Q in the Literary Agents and Scouts Centre (LitAg) in Hall 6. We will be working very closely with Louisa Pritchard Associates (table 8P), who handle translation rights on behalf of Science Factory titles for all territories excluding Japan (English Agency) and Korea (Duran Kim).

Our congratulations to Lone Frank, whose MY BEAUTIFUL GENOME has been shortlisted for the 2012 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. In the words of the judges, the book 'puts a personal story at the heart of the science. To some extent we are all narcissists and we want to learn more about ourselves. Frank provides us with an insight into how our genes help to define us. She keeps you wanting to read more.' The other shortlisted titles are Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer, The Information by James Gleick, The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene, The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker and The Viral Storm by Nathan Wolfe. The winning book will be announced at a public event in London on 26 November 2012.

We are delighted to announce that Palgrave Macmillan has acquired rights in a sweeping narrative account by the Cambridge immunologist John Rhodes of the global fight against infectious disease. Spanning more than three centuries, the book weaves together the discovery of vaccination, the birth and growth of immunology, the many battles, reversals and defeats on the path leading to the eradication of smallpox, the imminent defeat of polio, and the dawn of a new war on parasitic disease. World English rights were acquired at auction by Luba Ostashevsky, with publication slated for Autumn 2013, to coincide with the World Health Organization's expected announcement of the global eradication of polio – the second human disease to be eliminated from the planet.