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Displaying 76 - 100 of 101

Better Image-Quality Measurements for Bomb Squads

May 18, 2017

Jack Glover

I’ve been interested in science ever since I was a child. If you had told 8-year-old me that I was going to be a physicist, then I would have been very excited. Had you told me that my lab would be filled with a bevy of bombs, and that my typical work day might involve blasting those bombs with X

Georgia Harris at UPSRJ in Querétaro, Mexico

Teaching Metrology Abroad as a Fulbright Specialist

March 8, 2017

Georgia Harris

It seems that I have been a teacher nearly my entire life. One of my first jobs as an early teen was helping to teach gymnastics to elementary students. Before and after I earned my black belt in Tae Kwon Do, I taught a women’s and children’s classes. In the world of weights and measures and

Doug Olson with an engraved meter in Paris

Measuring Up to the Task

March 3, 2017

Doug Olson

Even though I have spent my entire professional career at NIST, until a year ago it would never have entered my mind that I would become the chief of the NIST Office of Weights and Measures. I started out on the scientific side of metrology, improving our nation’s standards for calibrating devices

Diagram of green and gray human-shaped mechanical figures

Making 'The Technology' for Exoskeletons a Reality

February 28, 2017

Bill Billotte

I grew up in a small farming community in southern Georgia. My main exposure to new technology was through the annual farm equipment exposition, science fiction books and television. One of my favorite shows was The Six Million Dollar Man. Do you remember the famous opening lines? "Steve Austin

Steel casement containing Curie's last radium standard

Saving Marie Curie’s Last Radium Standard

February 22, 2017

Bert Coursey

Marie Curie is perhaps the most famous woman of 20th-century science. Major motion pictures and best-selling biographies have chronicled her discovery of the radioactive elements polonium and radium, for which she shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and then received a second Nobel Prize, this

Elizabeth Gentry holding a kilogram test weight in the weights and measures training lab

Busting Myths about the Metric System

December 23, 2016

Elizabeth Benham

This year will be the 45th anniversary of the Metric Conversion Act, which was signed on December 23, 1975, by President Gerald R. Ford. Normally, we celebrate by sharing metric education resources, but this year I want to use the occasion to dispel some common misconceptions about the U.S

three weapons on a blue checked background

Women’s Body Armor: Staying Ahead of the Curves

August 1, 2016

Jennifer Huergo

As I peer into the cardboard box NIST researcher Amanda Forster holds out for me, I can’t help thinking that this mild-mannered materials scientist has an impressive collection of shivs. The handmade prison weapons include a ballpoint pen with a razor embedded in the shaft and a toothbrush

Know Nukes: Reference Materials for Nuclear Forensics

July 25, 2016

Jacqueline Mann

Legwarmers, preppies, yuppies, Molly Ringwald, nuclear paranoia … the 1980s were my favorite decade. I was in junior high school in New Jersey when I saw The Day After, a 1983 TV movie that depicted a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The focus of the movie, however, was

Building a Firearms Toolmark Database

July 22, 2016

Xiaoyu Alan Zheng

Although they are mass produced, every firearm is unique, and when fired, they leave unique markings called toolmarks on the bullet and cartridge casing. Law enforcement agencies have used these “fingerprints” to match firearms with bullets as part of their criminal investigations for more than a

Going the Distance on National Tape Measure Day

July 14, 2016

Dan Sawyer

Whether they’re made of leather or metal, people have been using tape measures for a long time. The first spring-loaded metal tape measure was invented and patented in England in 1829. Alvin Fellows of New Haven, Conn., made improvements to that design, including the locking mechanism that stops the

If I Had a Hammer … I’d Do Impact Testing

July 8, 2016

Steven Mates

Right now, scientists all over the world are trying to understand how we get injured when our bodies are subjected to strong, dynamic loads – a hard body-check on the hockey rink, a tackle on the football field, a car crash, or even a bomb blast. Fortunately, I haven’t had any experience with bomb

Man in blue shirt working at computer looking at device in lab

Additive Manufacturing Equals Excitement

June 23, 2016

Jarred Heigel

I research additive manufacturing, which some people call solid freeform fabrication, but most people know as 3-D printing. Additive manufacturing covers a wide range of processes that we can use to build parts and whole structures by strategically adding material only where we need it. Building

Black pencil, white paper with boxes checked in red

Celebrating World Accreditation Day

June 9, 2016

Dana Leaman

Want to pique interest in a subject area? Throw a party — right? Enter 2008 and World Accreditation Day. It was Monday, June 9, to be exact. I would love to be able to say that the date has some significance, but it doesn’t. To my knowledge, it was just randomly selected by the event organizers. And

Photo of damage from 2011 Joplin, Mo, tornado

Resilience Rises from Tragedy in Joplin

May 31, 2016

Marc Levitan

The May 22, 2011, tornado in Joplin, Mo., rated an EF-5—the most powerful ranking—on the Enhanced Fujita tornado intensity scale. It caused 161 fatalities and more than 1,000 injuries, making it the deadliest single tornado in the U.S. since we began keeping official records in 1950. With losses

Image of city scape with round green circle with a green check in upper left reading Tested & Certified

A “Certified” Stamp for the Smart Grid

May 26, 2016

Cuong Nguyen

When I go home after work, my wife and I are typically focused on the present moment, especially on our young son. As new parents, we benefit from many innovative products and services—from improved car seats and creative toys to safer cribs and video baby monitors. One of the first products that we

World Metrology Day: Kilogram in the Balance

May 20, 2016

Jon Pratt

It was Monday, April 25, 2016, and I was going to meet mass experts Pat Abbott and Eddie Mulhern of NIST’s Mass and Force group as part of my frantic preparations for a 5:21 p.m. flight to Paris. Pat and Eddie were the appointed custodians of the four 1 kilogram masses that I was to transport to the

Blue open double doors and walls covered with computer code

Bringing Clarity to the Cloud

May 16, 2016

Brian Stanton

Doors that are obviously meant to be pushed not pulled, footprints painted on the floor telling you where to stand at the airport—these are examples of good design and usability. You don’t have to think too hard about what to do because someone else put a lot of thought into how to get across the

showing representations of various microorganisms

Say Hello to Our Little Friends: Toward Microbial BiotheraPOOtics and Diagnostics

May 13, 2016

Scott Jackson

My fascination with the microbial world began when I was around 7 years old and my mother bought me a book called “ The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur”. Nearly four decades later, I still vividly remember the story about the little boy Joey and the “invisible enemy” that

white ambulance with red trim and letters on side with lights flashing as it responds to a call

Safety Standards for Ambulances — STAT

May 9, 2016

Jennifer Marshall

For as long as we have had automobiles, we have had traffic accidents. Even the vehicles that we depend on to take care of us in the event of an accident—ambulances—get into accidents nearly every day. Because ambulances are basically a small emergency room on wheels, the occupants in the back are

Magnifying glass magnifying a part of a DNA molecule

From Fiction to Forensics: An Inspired Story for National DNA Day

April 25, 2016

Becky Steffen

Nancy Drew and Kay Scarpetta—two names that will always put a smile on my face. I spent much of my youth reading about these two strong female characters. What do they have in common? They are fictional detectives that had an early influence on the career in DNA forensics that I have today at NIST

Smart Cities: Bringing Tech Benefits Directly to You

March 25, 2016

Sokwoo Rhee

Earlier this week at NIST, we brought together a diverse group of people who will have a profound influence on the future of our cities and the services provided to their citizens. These 300 leaders from government, industry, and academia came to attend an event called the Global City Team Challenge

Blonde woman in white lab coat working on equipment

Weighing My Career as a Metrologist

March 7, 2016

Carol Hockert

As happens with most every metrologist I know, I fell into metrology (the science of measurement) quite by accident. My degree was in chemical engineering, and I was probing the world around me to see what kind of work was out there for someone with my skills and interests. I learned of an upcoming

Happy Weights and Measures Week 2016!

March 1, 2016

Diane Lee

Like many of you, I venture out on Saturday mornings to get groceries and gas. Until my college years, I never thought much about whether or not I paid the right amount at the pump, if the supermarket scale was correct, or if packaged foods actually contained the amount of product stated on the

Got Evidence? How to Improve Forensic Science

February 18, 2016

John Butler

On TV crime shows, forensic evidence is collected, analyzed, the suspect positively identified, arrested, convicted, and imprisoned—all in under an hour. There are (usually) no mistakes in the collection or analysis (unless that would make for a better story), and when the forensics expert is called

NIST SRM 2387, Peanut Butter, with white bread

Going Nuts over NIST’s Standard Reference Peanut Butter

January 25, 2016

Mark Esser

Maintaining a social media account involves keeping track of the many random celebrations that can provide an excuse to post a story that otherwise might not have a timely hook. National Peanut Butter Day (Jan. 24 for the uninitiated) is just such a day. While NIST chemist Carolyn Burdette spent a

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