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Taking Measure

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Displaying 76 - 100 of 398
multi-bladed drone in flight

Flying Drones Compete to Complete Unprecedented Feat

August 1, 2018
Richard Wilkinson
… of the science carried out at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can be hard for the average person on the street to … Communications Research Division (PSCR) in NIST’s Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL). The goal of the challenge was to stimulate … PSCR’s prize and challenge specialist. “Right now, we are collecting information from the contestants, judges, and technical subject-matter …
man on a television set in front of a painting of a lighthouse and a ship at sea

NIST’s Role in TV Throughout the Decades

July 22, 2020
Alex Boss
… itself had to be invented. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has played a role in television throughout the decades … Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to determine which color TV technology should be adopted as the standard. The show lasted an hour … Inc., were competing against each other to develop the best color TV technology. The FCC formed committees to study, test and report on the …
Hae-Jeong Lee speaks into a microphone as a student stands beside her

Women in STEM: Igniting Young Minds, Illuminating the Future

March 16, 2020
Hae-Jeong Lee
… chemist and lab officer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). From November 2019 to February 2020, I worked as an … South Korea. The U.S. Department of State’s Office of Science and Technology Cooperation manages this program. Since 2001, it has … the world to advance U.S. interests by supporting American science, technology, environment, health and innovation priorities. Currently, 18 …
Josephson voltage standard chip with penny for scale

From 1901 to 2021: Measurements Then and Now

February 25, 2021
Mark Esser
… A lot has changed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the past 120 years. For one thing, we were known as … Then, in 1988, we became the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to reflect our agency’s expanding mission and a … of a second per day, about 3.5 seconds per year.   Today, using technology made possible by the Nobel Prize-winning work of NIST’s Bill …
A street map with highlighted routes is labeled with numbers for Car 1, 2 and 3 and pointers for Point A and Point B.

Brain-Inspired Computing Can Help Us Create Faster, More Energy-Efficient Devices — If We Win the Race

March 10, 2023
Advait Madhavan
… a precise, systematic fashion. Many years later, with the research of information scientist Claude Shannon, Boolean algebra was used with … form of spikes, enables the brain to do everything from transmitting information to storing memory to responding to visual stimuli, such as a … may not be as precise, its behavior is determined by the aggregated information of many of its neighbors. When trained on an input dataset, …
pumpkin spice latte

Small-Business Cybersecurity is Twice as Nice as Pumpkin Spice

October 10, 2017
Pat Toth
… importance of cybersecurity? Will they act to protect their business information and assets?” Many larger companies in the U.S. have dedicated resources—including people, technology and budgets—to protect against cybersecurity threats. As a … overall impact of a cybersecurity incident could include: damage to information or information systems; regulatory fines and penalties/legal …
a woman sitting in front of a control panel that reads "WWV 2.5 MHz." In front of her is a table covered with hundreds of letters

NIST Radio Station WWV Celebrates a Century of Service

October 1, 2019
Laura Ost
… rather dry but very, very useful. WWV broadcasts time and frequency information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to millions of listeners … radio receivers, alerts of geophysical activity, and other information. WWV broadcasts on six different shortwave frequencies … relevant activities, NBS supported the public’s use of the novel technology by publishing instructions on how to build one’s own radio …
woman stands over the shoulder of two students working on laptops. 3D printers in the background.

Rethinking Manufacturing

February 12, 2019
Zara Brunner
… there’s a revitalization underway as the region has embraced the technology-based manufacturing that is advanced manufacturing. You can … among ever-increasing global competition. Additive manufacturing is a technology that deposits materials in layers to create lighter, stronger … is a unique, hands-on learning lab dedicated to advancing the technology, processes, materials and knowledge of the additive …
top left: circuit board; top right: materials from HHCIII; bottom left: leaf; bottom right: 3-D atomic clock

Twelve Ways NIST Is Working for You: 2017 Edition

December 29, 2017
Ben P. Stein
… Research, Inc. The $500,000 award will help fund work to develop new technology that may reduce certain measures of impact by more than 70 … year, from the Equifax data breach that exposed sensitive personal information of more than 140 million American consumers to the WannaCry … Leaps There’s a worldwide race underway to take the lead in quantum information, which combines the strange rules of quantum physics with …
Adam Pintar standing with arms crossed in front of a whiteboard covered with equations and graphs

One Statistical Paradigm to Rule Them All?

April 8, 2019
Adam Pintar
… category, I wonder?). A well-designed experiment provides as much information as possible. But because real-world data are noisy, … quite that cliché. I work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), so let’s talk about Standard Reference Materials … distribution. It turns out that if the observed data provide strong information relative to the information conveyed by the prior …
Circular multicolored graphic showing the symbols for the SI base units and the constants that are used to define them.

For All Times, For All Peoples: How Replacing the Kilogram Empowers Industry

November 26, 2018
James K. Olthoff
… in 1988, but it’s only now that we’ve really started to make the “technology” in the “National Institute of Standards and Technology” transition. Just like we’re looking to do with the Kibble … even earlier in the process, as soon as we realize that a measurement technology is transferable. We would work with those companies under …
electronic welcome sign

Introducing NIST's New Blog: Taking Measure

January 14, 2016
Willie May
… and literally. We are constantly looking ahead to where science and technology are going so that we can figure out how to best serve our … we do. I hope we can answer some of your questions about science and technology, and about why we do this work. This blog will give you a …
Melinda Kleczynski poses sitting at her desk, with a monitor showing data and graphs behind her.

From Diamonds in Your Computer to Safer Medications, NIST Researchers Look at What’s Next for 2024 and Beyond

December 18, 2023
… about.  In the near future, I’m excited by all the ways quantum technology will be used in fields for which it was not originally … computers consume a lot of power because they must shuttle information between the processing part of the chip and memory. If … may notice it can take time to get an answer; all that shuttling of information back and forth takes power.  Our research shows that you can …
graphic showing a cityscape with various icons representing how AI will affect power generation, health, manufacturing, transportation etc.

Trustworthy AI: A Q&A With NIST's Chuck Romine

January 9, 2020
… new risks that society is grappling with. How can we be sure this new technology is not just innovative and helpful, but also trustworthy, … unbiased, and resilient in the face of attack? We sat down with NIST Information Technology Lab Director Chuck Romine to learn how … too easy to compromise and they’re betraying too much of my personal information, so get them out of my house. What we can do to help, and …
black and white photo of a 1920s weights and measures inspector checking the accuracy of a grocery store scale using test weights

Back to Basics: Weights and Measures Week 2018

March 6, 2018
Tina Butcher
… informed buying decision. And it’s not just consumers who need this information and assurance of accuracy. Think about all the businesses … the cloud,” includes a shout out to the advances made in measurement technology. In the weights and measures world, this calls up an image of … scales in the supermarket are often computerized and download pricing information and discounts that get applied at the cash register when the …
Lily Chen at her whiteboard

Deciphering: The Thrill of a Lifetime

June 9, 2017
Lily Chen
… called “ stream cipher ,” so named because it encrypts each bit of information as it passes through. My graduate school research mainly … which was the first cryptographic algorithm to become a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). It was through DES that I first … provide proper security strength. And this is what the Cryptographic Technology Group at NIST is doing: developing cryptographic standards …
a graphic collage of different visual elements to suggest biomanufacturing and manufacturing using robots. The words MFG DAY 2021 appear in the top left hand corner.

Robotic Motion and Drug-Carrying Nanoparticles: A Look at Two Paths Through the Diverse World of Manufacturing Research

September 28, 2021
Jonathan Griffin
… of this group as well. At the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), studies are conducted across a broad array of fields … is located in 3D space and its angular position. The rich positional information gained from this device could help manufacturers not only … to expand as Helen continues to explore new applications for her technology.   Imaging Biomolecules With Tom Cleveland NIST physicist Tom …
Man in suit with briefcast looking over edge of crevice

Ignoring Cybersecurity is Risky Business

November 17, 2016
Pat Toth
… engineering, potentially fooling your employees into giving away information that they could use to hurt your business’s reputation or … when they need that application to do their work. How do they handle information that may be sensitive to the business such as tax or payroll information? Your employees need to know that they should not send out …
Alexander Kramida looks up as he sits at his desk in front of a computer screen full of data.

Shedding Light: How NIST’s Light Database Helps Bring You Computer Chips, Welded Steel and More

March 17, 2025
Alexander Kramida
… us to the light of the same atoms here on Earth. Astronomers use this information to study the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang. … data for researchers. This helps all kinds of users have the best information possible to do their work. The Light Database in Action … manage the Atomic Spectra Database , a catalog of atomic spectroscopy information that industries, academia and others use to do research and …
Charlie Tarrio peers into a large chamber illuminated by purple light.

How Extreme Ultraviolet Light Helps Give Us Smarter Smartphones and Stronger Satellites

April 13, 2020
Charles Tarrio, Thomas Lucatorto
… In 2019, after decades of effort, manufacturers used a new technology to create smartphones with individual circuit features as … devices. Where does the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) come into play here? NIST was an early collaborator … 193 nm, which was as far as they could go using conventional optical technology. Around the same time, several forward-looking researchers in …
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