Aug. 31, 2007 (See more photos)
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Bruce Hammock drenches researchers Katherine Tran (left) and Christine Hegedus. In back is researcher Christophe Morisseau. (Photos by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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DAVIS—Researchers and staff in Bruce Hammock’s laboratories at the University of California, Davis, know how to spell “R-E-L-I-E-F.”
It’s “W-A-T-E-R.”
The fifth annual Bruce’s Balloon Battle at Briggs drew more than 50 scientists Friday afternoon, Aug. 31, as temperatures soared over 100 degrees.
The researchers spilled out of the Hammock labs to the Briggs Hall lawn to do battle. “This year we filled 2500 water balloons,” said administrative assistant Jeanette Martin, who held forth beneath a red umbrella.
Colleagues point out that Hammock, a distinguished professor of entomology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is renowned in the scientific world for his work at the UC Davis Cancer Research Center; as the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)-UC Davis Superfund Basic Research Program; and as the principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program.
But he’s also known for hosting the annual water battles and creating “water warriors” out of his scientists. His labs host more than 50 graduate students, post-doctorates and researchers from throughout the United States, plus France, Korea, Egypt, Sweden, China and other countries.
For an hour every summer, they aside their work on “soluble epoxide hydrolase” and other research projects and “everyone has a blast,” Martin said.
Chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology, and his family joined them, as did others headquartered at Briggs.
Hammock lived up to his reputation. “Bruce is so skilled at water balloon battles that he can catch the balloons in mid-air,” Martin said, “and throw them back at you.”
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| Bruce Hammock, professor of entomology, gets ready to pitch two water balloons. |
Walter Leal, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology, drenches Hammock lab researcher Todd Harris. (See more photos) |
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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
(530) 754-6894
