U.S. physicist honored by Italian academy

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BERKELEY, Calif., July 26 (UPI) -- U.S. astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter has been awarded the 2006 International Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in the physical and mathematical sciences.

The award is presented once every five years by Italy's Lincei National Academy, one of whose earliest members was Galileo Galilei.

Perlmutter is a research leader at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California-Berkeley. He is the co-founder and leader of the international Supernova Cosmology Project, principal investigator of the proposed SuperNova/Acceleration Probe satellite, and leader of several other groups studying the nature of dark energy.

The Antonio Feltrinelli Prizes, which include a $315,000 award, are considered Italy's highest scientific and cultural honors.