Feb. 11 – Scientific publishing made in Italy is becoming increasingly appreciated and recognized abroad. The Association of American Publishers – in the annual ceremony held in Washington – announced the winners of the “Prose Awards,” an international prize awarded annually to the authors of books of academic value in forty different disciplinary fields. Among them, there is also an Italian. For 2015, in the categories “Earth Science” and “Excellence in Physical and Mathematical Sciences”, the prize was awarded to Giovanni Pratesi, director of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence. Pratesi is author of “Atlas of Meteorites,” along with Vanni Moggi Cecchi (former curator at the Museum of Planetary Sciences of the Province of Prato and currently science professor at the Liceo Scientifico Gobetti) and Monica Grady (one of the leading international experts in meteorites and Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University). The book, published by Cambridge University Press, provides a systematic account of meteorites and their main classification parameters, constituting thus a valuable resource for researchers and scholars of meteorites and planetary mineralogy. The work also contains a number of high-resolution images, enhanced by detailed descriptions. The “Prose Awards” – considered the Oscars in the world of academic publishing – were established in 1976: the winners are chosen by a jury of eminent scholars, publishers and librarians. “Atlas of Meteorites” reached first place in the category “Earth Sciences” and also won one of the awards “best in show” for “Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics.”
