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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/838
58 MacDirectory INTERVIEW PAUL SERENO > DINOSAUR MAN If you have never heard of Paul Sereno, you may have heard of some of his discoveries. The Sarcosuchus imperator, better known as the SuperCroc, a 40-foot long crocodile that feasted on dinosaurs, is one of them. The African Pterosaur, a flying dinosaur with a wingspan of 16 feet that lived 110 million years ago is another. There is also the Jobaria tiguidensis, which translates into "Africa's Dinosaur Giant." This gentle giant was nearly 70 feet long and a vegetarian 135 million years ago, before it was hip. The list of extinct creatures Sereno, the famed dinosaur hunter, has discovered and recovered is impressive to say the least. Sereno, who is a professor at the presti- gious University of Chicago, has dug up fossils on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. He has a preter- natural sense for understanding where the dinosaurs died and he has recently made a major archeological discovery. While Sereno is a pro at digging up the past he relies on the cutting edge technology of Apple to make his dinosaurs come to life. MacDirectory sat down with Sereno to discuss dinosaur hunting, computing, and where he gets his edge from. MacDirectory > When did you start using Apple computers? Paul Sereno > The first computer I ever had was a Mac. It was something that my family purchased. I think it was a Mac plus but I'm not sure. It was one of the first ones marketed widely. I've always preferred Apple more than a PC so I've used them consistently since my first days of computing. As a grad student, about 20 years ago, I wasn't at the point where I could afford a personal computer. But shortly after that, when I got to University of Chicago as an assistant professor in 1987, I purchased my first. MD > What were you using in the '80s as a grad student? PS > We had used department-wide dedicated word processors back in the '80s. When I got to Chicago I set up with Mac and I've been using ever since. I'm really delighted that a lot of the programs we use in our field are becoming OS X available. MD > What are some of those programs? PS > A lot of the time we are measuring specimens and working with engineering programs and things like that. Many of them have been PC-based programs used in the engineering business. The work we do is the marriage of engineering programs and other kinds of imaging programs. I like the visual prowess that we get with the Macs and I like operating on the same platform. You can go and do whatever you want scientifically with a specimen and then move to making some really great images. It could be working with hospitals and CT scans, which is the latest thing were doing. It's wonderful that Apple has extended their programming so we can work straight from a CT scan, which are huge data sets, make changes to them, and then bring them into other programs you would normally use to manipulate images. It's INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS BY CHRIS SWEENEY