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Gabriel Leal, 9, douses Bruce Hammock.
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Bruce Hammock reacts.
(Photos by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS--He’s better known as a distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
He’s better known for his work at the UC Davis Cancer Research Center or as the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)-UC Davis Superfund Basic Research Program or as the principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program.
He’s better known for giving lectures on such topics as “The Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase as a Pharmaceutical Target for Treating Hypertension, Pain and Inflammation.”
But Bruce Hammock is also known for hosting annual water balloon battles outside Briggs Hall for his researchers, staff and other personnel. At the fourth annual celebration held Friday afternoon, July 28, the “pharmaceutical target” in his lectures switched to “physical targets.”
“Nobody can beat Bruce Hammock in water balloons,” said his administrative assistant Jeanette Martin. “He’s amazing. He can catch water balloons in mid-air and throw them back at you.”
However, this year nine-year-old Gabriel Leal, son of Department of Entomology chair and professor Walter Leal, did him one better. After the batch of 1000 water balloons ran out, Gabriel soaked an unsuspecting Hammock with a bucket of water.
“A nine-year-old got the best of a National Academy of Sciences scholar,” quipped Walter Leal.
Although buckets of water are integral to football championships and a favorite among practical jokesters, scientists at Briggs Hall use water to beat the heat, Martin said. “There’s no better way to beat the heat than by playing, getting soaking wet, staying cool, laughing and screaming!” she said.
Hammock, named a member of NAS (Animal, Nutritional and Applied Microbial Sciences section) in 1999 for his research detecting toxins in food, the environment, and human tissues using immunocytochemistry, “revolutionized environmental toxicology and set the present standard for approval of pesticides and products of biotechnology,” his citation says. “He also characterized the mechanism of action of nongenotoxic carcinogens on esterases, hydrolases, and transferases in both vertebrates and invertebrates.”
NAS, signed into being by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863 at the height of the Civil War, is comprised of “distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare.”
As for NAS scholar Bruce Hammock, the annual water balloon battle is “general warfare”—and a cool way to boost camaraderie.
“Next year,” Martin promised, “we’ll have 2,000 to 3,000 balloons.”
Jason Graham, a forensic entomology researcher who works with blow flies and maggots, said he’d like to participate next year but deadpanned: “I don’t think they’d appreciate what we have to throw.” |
