TIME OUT - PAUL TAFFOREAU: "The past helps us to better understand the present"

Paul Tafforeau - Paleontologist at the ESRF

By Montserrat Capellas

When the ESRF was first conceived, he wasn't even born. At the first stages of the ESRF, he was a child who learned to cut bifacial silex from stones and was fascinated by prehistoric men. He also spent much of his childhood going "fossil hunting" in Normandy (France), where he used to live. Now, at 28, he has become the first palaeontologist to take advantage of the facilities at the ESRF. In recognition of his work in introducing synchrotron radiation to new communities, the ESRF Users' Organisation has given him the Young Scientist Award, dedicated to outstanding scientists under 35 years old. He is the youngest scientist to have ever received this prize.

In addition to your own research, are you laying the groundwork for the palaeontologist community?
I have set up a network of palaeontologists who have started using the synchrotron possibilities. At the moment, I am involved in around 22 collaborative research projects from all over the world, and I hope my prize will help further this work. The fact that I am working at the ESRF gives the community and myself a unique opportunity to investigate fossils, to develop the best techniques and to increase the quantity of experiments. At the beginning, I was aware of the problems that needed to be solved within the fossils, however, I needed to find an appropriate technique. Now, I also do the process the other way round: familiarity with the techniques helps me discover new applications.

Do you feel that you have some gaps in your knowledge of physics compared to your colleagues?
Yes, this is certainly the case. My colleagues have taught me the main principles of synchrotron radiation for imaging and that is generally enough for me to carry out experiments. What is important in my job is to be able to interpret the images, which requires expertise in palaeontology and in biology. However, I will attend a Hercules X-ray imaging course this year, to study the possibilities of synchrotron X-rays in greater detail and to better understand the techniques I am using on the fossils.

How did you start using synchrotron radiation?
When I was doing my thesis, I tested my samples in an industrial microtomograph. The people in charge of that scanner suggested that I should carry out a test at the ESRF during their next experiment. My original aim was to see the 3D structure of a tooth without destroying it. The first results were very disappointing, because this tooth turned out to be one of the rare teeth in which you can't see anything, not even using the best available technique. However, this was not really a problem, because it gave me the opportunity to discover the ESRF and I started submitting proposals soon afterwards with the assistance of José Baruchel, head of the X-ray imaging group.

Will the use of synchrotron radiation by the palaeontology community experience a boom?
Conventional microtomography is undergoing rapid growth and this lets palaeontologists make a better selection of the samples they will bring to the ESRF afterwards. However, I don't think there will be a boom in microtomography in synchrotrons, in particular because there are just a very limited number of facilities that could carry out the experiments that we do here. The minimum energy needed is 20-25 keV in order to study small fossils -most require an energy range higher than 50 keV-, and so national synchrotrons would only be of use for very small fossils.

What about other big facilities like Spring 8 and APS?
They definitely have the capabilities to apply techniques like Phase Contrast, which makes miracles happen for palaeontology, but I don't think they have done it yet.

Why should they do it? What is so important about palaeontology?
It is true that this discipline doesn't help you sleep better at night, and it will never save the world, but then we can also ask ourselves, what is the use of astronomy? I think the study of the past helps us to better understand the present. Besides, palaeontology is also a "modern" science: many micro-palaeontologists are recruited today to find oil fields, because oil itself is a fossil. What I do, though, is mostly fundamental science, but I still find it fascinating.

Do you still go "fossil hunting" for fun?
Since I started my PhD I haven't had a chance to go again. Besides, now I have a baby, and a high workload, so it is difficult to find spare time.

Will you try to pass on your passion to your child?
He already has toy dinosaurs to play with and he is surrounded by fossils and skeletons of animals that decorate the house. So I guess he will inevitably be immersed in the world of palaeontology. Whether it will captivate him or not, is another question!