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Material Measurement Laboratory

Chemical Sciences Division

News and Updates

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'Hard Rock' Standard Reference Material Makes Identifying Chemicals in Mine Waste Easier

March 20, 2018

Across the American West’s Rocky and Sierra mountains, miners dug for gold, silver, zinc and lead to make their fortunes in the Gold Rush of the 19th and early...

Detecting Chemical Agents with Confidence

January 17, 2018

The Joint Chemical Agent Detector (JCAD) has become an important defense tool on battlefields and in war-torn cities over the last few years. About the size and...

Sticking Together

January 16, 2018

NIST helps to ensure the strength of buildings, bridges, roadways, and other critical structures all over the world. The Material Measurement Lab at NIST makes...

How the Cone Snail’s Deadly Venom Can Help Us Build Better Medicines

October 10, 2017

Cone snails have inspired humans for centuries. Coastal communities have often traded their beautiful shells like money and put them in jewelry. Many artists...

Small Wonder

September 25, 2017

NIST helps semiconductor manufacturers—who are under continual pressure to make smaller, faster computer chips—reduce the time required to develop new...

photo of brass-colored measuring instrument

New Method for Identifying Carbon Compounds Derived from Fossil Fuels

September 12, 2017

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a laboratory instrument that can measure how much of the carbon in many...

Diving Deep into the Dolphin Genome Could Benefit Human Health

February 22, 2017

In movies and TV shows, dolphins are often portrayed as heroes who save humans through remarkable feats of strength and tenacity. Now dolphins could save the...

Illustration of setup for separating nanoparticles from organisms

NIST Updates ‘Sweet’ 1950s Separation Method to Clean Nanoparticles from Organisms

January 26, 2017

Sometimes old-school methods provide the best ways of studying cutting-edge tech and its effects on the modern world. Giving a 65-year-old laboratory technique...

Universe’s Constants Now Known with Sufficient Certainty to Completely Redefine the International System of Units

November 22, 2016

Fundamental constants are physical quantities that are universal in nature. For example, the speed of light in vacuum and the charge of a single electron are...

NIST-Made ‘Sun and Rain’ Detail How Nanoparticles Can Escape from Plastic Coatings into the Environment

September 30, 2016

If the 1967 film “The Graduate” were remade today, Mr. McGuire’s famous advice to young Benjamin Braddock would probably be updated to “Plastics … with...

NIST research chemist Jeanita Pritchett extracts nicotine and tobacco-specific compounds from a candidate Standard Reference Material (SRM)

New NIST Reference Material Helps Assure Accurate Measurement of Constituents in Tobacco Products

September 12, 2016

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued a reference material with certified amounts of nicotine and two carcinogens to help ensure...

Perfluorinated Compounds Found in African Crocodiles, American Alligators

August 25, 2016

American alligators and South African crocodiles populate waterways a third of the globe apart, and yet both have detectable levels of long-lived industrial and...

How Refreshing: NIST's Natural Air Standards Support Accurate Greenhouse Gas Measurements

February 19, 2016

When it comes to tallying emissions of greenhouse gases, there is no better substitute than directly measuring the atmosphere. But this important accounting can...

Researchers Find Organic Pollutants Not Factor in Turtle Tumor Disease

July 15, 2014

For nearly four decades, scientists have suspected that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) contributed to a green turtle's susceptibility to the virus that...

High school student Jessica Young checking the packing density of random aggregates of plastic spheres in a cylinder.

Snowballs to Soot: The Clumping Density of Many Things Seems to Be a Standard

June 10, 2014

Particles of soot floating through the air and comets hurtling through space have at least one thing in common: 0.36. That, reports a research group at the...

A New NIST Online Database: The NIST Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Structure Index

January 6, 2014

Recently, a new website containing a wealth of information on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was made publicly available by NIST. PAHs are compounds...

NIST Nose a Hit When They Smell It: A New Generation of Odor-Releasing Materials for Training Dogs

September 17, 2013

Traditionally, the training of bomb-sniffing dogs has been a hazardous job, but newly developed odor-releasing materials could take the risk out of that work...

Innovation in Spectroscopy Could Improve Greenhouse Gas Detection

May 14, 2013

Detecting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could soon become far easier with the help of an innovative technique* developed by a team at the National...

New Reference Material to Help Get the Lead Out of Paints for Children's Products

October 16, 2012

To help manufacturers adhere to new regulations intended to reduce the risk of lead poisoning in children, researchers at the National Institute of Standards...

A hawksbill sea turtle swims above a coral reef in waters off the British Virgin Islands.

Pollutants Could Pose Health Risks for Five Sea Turtle Species

June 27, 2012

Researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) and four partner organizations have measured for the first time concentrations of 13 perfluoroalkyl...

SRM 2907: Reference Material for Explosive Traces

New NIST SRM Supports the Fight Against Terrorist Bombings

May 29, 2012

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a new standard reference material (SRM) to aid in the detection of two explosive...

Researchers Find Reducing Fishmeal Hinders Growth of Farmed Fish

May 2, 2012

When it comes to the food used to raise fish in aquaculture "farms," it seems that you may get what you pay for. In a new study,* researchers from the National...

NIST Releases Two New SRMs for Monitoring Human Exposure to Environmental Toxins

January 10, 2012

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has developed two new...

Marine Lab Research Tracks Pollutants in Dolphins and Beluga Whales

May 10, 2011

Bottlenose dolphins* and beluga whales**, two marine species at or near the top of their respective food webs, accumulate more chemical pollutants in their...

Travel Hazards: Two Studies Start to Map Pollutant Threats to Turtles

April 26, 2011

In a pair of studies—one recently published online* and the other soon-to-be published**— researchers at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML), a government...

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