Brasília, March 29, 2004 (Agência Brasil) - Professor Mário Novello, researcher at the Brazilian Center for Research in Physics (CBPF), will receive the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Claude Bernard University Lyon 1. The last physicist to receive this honorary award was Professor Andrei Sakharov, from the ex-Soviet Union and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. The title will be presented during the RADAM Conference: Radiation Damage in Biomolecular Systems, in Lyon, France, on June 24-27.

Novello is an important figure in Brazilian cosmology. He coordinated the CBPF's Cosmology and Gravitation Group, which he founded in 1972. He obtained a doctorate in Physics from the University of Geneva, in Switzerland, and a post-doctoral degree from the Astrophysics Department of the University of Oxford, England. His published work includes over 100 scientific articles in international journals and two books, "Cosmos et Contexte" (Paris, Ed. Masson, 1987) and "The Circle of Time: A Critical Look at Non-Conventional Time Travel" (Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Campus, 1998).

Translator: David Silberstein