U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Taking Measure Blog Posts

Public safety

Put exact phrase in quotes (e.g., "artificial intelligence")

Subscribe

Get Taking Measure blogs
delivered to your inbox.

GovDelivery(link is external)
Displaying 26 - 50 of 76
John Butler in his lab in front of a computer monitor with graphics on it

DNA Mixture Interpretations: A Q&A With NIST’s John Butler

July 22, 2021
Whether from skin cells, saliva, semen or blood, DNA from a crime scene is often collected and tested in a lab to see if a suspect’s DNA is likely a contributor to that sample or not. But every DNA sample tells a different story, and some samples are easier to interpret than others. The simplest
Adam Jacoff in the NIST Robot Test Facility in the obstacle course with a robot

Search and Rescue Robotics: A Q&A With NIST's Adam Jacoff

April 28, 2021
Adam Jacoff has been a robotics research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 1988. His research has focused on developing a variety of new robotic capabilities and designing comprehensive suites of tests to foster innovation throughout the robotics community
masked man with baseball cap seated at a lab bench pipetting samples

Improving Forensic Chemistry: A Q&A With NIST's Ed Sisco

April 28, 2021
Ed Sisco has been a research chemist within the Surface and Trace Chemical Analysis Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 2014. His research has focused on chemical identification systems for forensics, homeland security and other applications. Ed is a finalist for
a person dispensing hand sanitizer into their hand

NIST Lends a Hand to Hand-Sanitizer Manufacturers

March 12, 2021
William A. MacCrehan
Like everyone on the planet, our organization, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), became concerned with the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. NIST scientists were anxious to provide any assistance they could to support COVID response efforts. As we were thinking of ways we
a collage of images. The number "2020" is surrounded by images of NIST staff George Gibson, Matt Staymates and Yamali Hernandez, a poster for the movie "The Last Artifact," an image of bikers racing up a hill, and a rifle bullet in a glass vial.

Need Some Good News? NIST’s 2020 Highlights

December 16, 2020
Mark Esser
2020 has been a challenging year, but we at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have worked as hard as we can to fulfill our mission for the American people: to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in
a collage of different graphical objects including representations of an ambulance, a police car, fire fighters, 911 call takers and various communications technologies like smartphones.

How NIST Is Helping First Responders Stay Connected

November 24, 2020
Shanée Dawkins
What do first responders do? It’s an easy question, and I used to think I knew the answer. Firefighters put out fires; police officers enforce the law; EMS workers treat injuries; 911 operators answer 911 calls and dispatch first responders to the scene. Simple, right? I am a computer scientist at
partially knocked down fence in the foreground, a wildfire in the background

Knocking Down Fences for Fire Research

October 9, 2020
Rik Johnsson
Wildfires don’t stop where the wilderness ends. They burn through communities and neighborhoods, destroying property and taking lives. In 2018, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection alone reported 7,948 wildfire incidents, burning almost 2 million acres across the state and
Jimmy Doolittle in an airplane cockpit

How NIST Helped Hero Pilot Jimmy Doolittle Fly

August 10, 2020
Laura Ost
As portrayed by movie star Spencer Tracy in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, pilot James (Jimmy) Doolittle led the 1942 air raid on Japan that lifted American spirits in early World War II, winning fame and the Medal of Honor. He eventually became a four-star general. Long before Doolittle became a legend
Andras Vladar in a white gown, hairnet and mask with a scanning electron microscope.

How Can NIST Help: Collaborating at a Distance to Defeat COVID-19

June 9, 2020
Heather Evans
I’ve been working from home since March 13. But even though I’ve been remote, I am still really connected to my colleagues — and have even created some new relationships. How’d that happen? First off, my office — the Program Coordination Office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
firefighter holding a phone with an app pulled up on the screen

When Standardized Data Can Help Save Lives

July 26, 2019
Britta Voss
When you email a friend, you don’t have to worry about whether they use Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or some other email provider. You just enter their email address, write your message and hit send. The reason this works is that there are layers of standardized protocols that all the email clients have
woman loads small plastic vials containing human DNA into a large machine

Human DNA Standard: A Q&A With NIST’s Becky Steffen

July 15, 2019
Becky Steffen
How do you solve a crime using DNA? First, you have to find biological evidence — such as blood, other bodily fluids, or maybe just a few skin cells that might be related to the crime. Then you can try to generate a DNA profile from that evidence. That is a genetic fingerprint, and no two people
firefighter speaks into a handheld radio

Mission Critical Voice Communications: Your Life May Depend on It!

June 7, 2019
Tim Thompson
Just about everyone knows someone who works in public safety. For me, I have two close family members who are first responders. My brother-in-law is a firefighter in Fort Worth, Texas. His son, my nephew, is a paramedic. They both rely on mission critical voice communications to save lives every day
A colorful illustration of showing human-like figures with the letters A, G, T, and C.



National DNA Day and the Birth of Investigative Genetic Genealogy

April 24, 2019
John Butler
Happy National DNA Day! Each year on April 25 we celebrate the 1953 publication of James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin’s discovery of DNA’s double helix. The day also marks the completion of the first human genome sequence in 2003. In February 2018, I gave an invited
smoke billows from the open doorway of a burning test storage room

Rescuing Our History from the Ashes

November 1, 2018
Jason Stoughton
What strikes terror in the hearts of museum curators everywhere? Budget cuts, surely. But worse yet, the prospect of precious, irreplaceable relics being damaged or destroyed in a fire. The Sept. 2, 2018, fire at Brazil's National Museum, estimated to have consumed 90 percent of its 20 million