THE DOWNLOAD: Helping a Hawk, Brewing Without Hops

UC Davis helped a red-tailed hawk learn to fly again, after the raptor lost some crucial feathers. The bird came in with six broken feathers, and underwent a procedure at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital to have new feathers glued in place.

Learn more about the process of replacing the feathers, called "imping," in the above video.

'Pope of Foam' makes do without the hops

Can you brew a hoppy beer without hops? Beer purists might regard the idea with suspicion, but researchers at UC Berkeley, with some help from UC Davis’ “Pope of Foam,” have shown that you can brew a tasty hoppy beer using gene-edited yeast to replace hop flavors.

Denby and Rachel Li, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, used CRISPR/Cas9 technology to engineer brewer’s yeast to include genes from mint, basil and hops. Their goal was to create yeast that could make two chemicals, linalool and geraniol, that produce hoppy flavors.

They brought their most promising yeast strains to Charles Bamforth, professor of malting and brewing science at UC Davis and an authority on all things beer-related, and asked him to test them out in some brews.

Read more on the UC Davis Egghead blog.

Aggies, assemble!

Avengers: Infinity War, the summer blockbuster that has been generating heaps of buzz for Marvel, has a UC Davis connection. Aggie alumni Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote Marvel's Captain America trilogy, served as writers on the film and its forthcoming sequel.

Read more about the pair in this 2011 UC Davis Magazine profile.

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