Paul Becquerel (14 April 1879 – 22 June 1955) was a French biologist who studied seeds, their metabolism, and viability. He was a nephew of the physicist

Henri Becquerel Antoine Henri Becquerel ( ; ; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French nuclear physicist who shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marie and Pierre Curie for his discovery of radioactivity. Biography Family and education Becq ...

and taught at the Faculty of Sciences in Nancy and at the University of Poitiers. Becquerel was the son of farmer André Paul Becquerel (1856-1904). Paul was a grandson of Edmond Becquerel and a nephew of

. He studied science in Paris in 1903 and obtained a doctorate in 1907. He taught at Nancy and then at the

University of Poitiers The University of Poitiers (UP; , ) is a public university located in Poitiers, France. It is a member of the Coimbra Group. It is multidisciplinary and contributes to making Poitiers the city with the highest student/inhabitant ratio in France ...

. He began to study the viability of cells and demonstrated that spores and seeds became resistant after losing water and that rehydration could revive them. Paul Becquerel had studied under

Gaston Bonnier Gaston Eugène Marie Bonnier (; 9 April 1853 – 2 January 1922) was a French botanist and plant ecologist. Biography Bonnier first studied at École Normale Supérieure in Paris from 1873 to 1876. Together with Charles Flahault, he studied ...

in Paris. Bonnier had refused to accept the evolution of life from inorganic matter and considered the idea of seeding from outer space as a more plausible origin of life. Becquerel experimented with bacteria, fungal spores and seeds to test if they could withstand the conditions of space such as radiation and concluded that panspermia could not be supported. Becquerel tested the viability of seeds obtained from French museums. He was able to germinate seeds of ''Cassia multijuga'' (now ''

Senna multijuga ''Senna multijuga'', commonly known as November shower or false sicklepod, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. It is native to wet tropical areas of Latin America, and widely introduced to other tropical locales such as Africa ...

'') which was 158 years old.

Major publications

Becquerel's most widely cited publications include: * Becquerel P (1906): "Sur la respiration des graines à l’état de vie latente. Compte rendu des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences", 143:974-977 * Becquerel P (1906): "Sur la nature de la vie latente des graines et sur les véritables caractères de la vie". Compte rendu des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences", 143:1177-1179. * Becquerel P (1907): "Recherches sur la vie latente des graines" Dissertation, University of Paris. * Becquerel P (1909): "Sur la suspension de la vie chez certaines graines. Compte rendu des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences", 148:1052-54. * Becquerel P (1910): "Recherches expérimentales sur la vie latente des spores Mucorinées et Ascomycètes. Compte rendu des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences", 150:1437-1439 * Becquerel P (1910): "L’action abiotique de l’ultraviolet et l’hypothèse de l’origine cosmique de la vie. Compte rendu des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences", 151:86-88

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Becquerel, Paul 20th-century French biologists 1879 births 1955 deaths