VALENTINE'S DAY ANNIVERSARY
Denise and James Bradford were the subjects of a February 10 Wilmington Advertiser story about their first anniversary. The couple, who both work at MIT, were married February 14, 1999.
In the article, Mrs. Bradford notes that their wedding date made the planning a little easier: "What other colors are you going to have besides red and white?"
Flowers were problematic, however. "There wasn't a florist around who would talk to [the couple] when they found out the date of the wedding," wrote Cheryl Harrison. As a result, the bride opted for an artificial bouquet of roses from a craft store, and each table at the reception "featured a set of candles instead of flowers as the centerpiece."
The two met at MIT. She is an executive secretary at the Technology Licensing Office; he is a maintenance mechanic in the Department of Facilities.
TOWARD MARS
"The right stuff for the Red Planet," reads the headline for Salon magazine's February 16 profile of Professor Dava Newman of aeronautics and astronautics.
Writer William Speed Weed describes Professor Newman's fascination at age five with "the image of a man bunny-hopping on the moon." Now an MIT engineer, "she's determined to get us where we really want to go: Mars! [and] she's got a good chance of succeeding: NASA funds a growing force of engineers like Newman who were children when the Eagle landed and who are now eager and capable enough to further our foray into the solar system."
Professor Newman's research involves "getting astronauts there and back without them turning to jelly." To that end she is working to develop countermeasures to such medical problems as the deterioration of bone and muscle.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 15, 2000.
