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If you’re worried about carbon monoxide poisoning, you might purchase a detector for your home. But what if your house itself could sense carbon monoxide and...
Sylvester James Gates, Jr. is a world-recognized researcher in theoretical physics. Formerly of the University of Maryland and now a professor at Brown...
In a pioneering effort to control, measure and understand magnetism at the atomic level, researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and...
The world-class clean room in the NIST Boulder Microfabrication Facility (BMF) has just gotten a bit more crowded – in a good way. Staff members have recently...
NIST scientists have achieved a world record in detecting the intensity of an ultra-faint source of light, equaling the capabilities of the deep-space...
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...
Most measuring instruments are limited by the tradeoff between how precisely and how rapidly a measurement is made: the more precise the measurement, the longer...
GAITHERSBURG, Md.—The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the U.S. Commerce Department’s (DOC) 2016 Annual Report on Technology...
In our everyday lives, pressure can mean a looming work deadline, a final exam, or bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. In scientific terms, pressure is a...
You can’t hear most of them, but the world is running on different kinds of mechanical oscillations. For example, inside the average electronic wristwatch is a...
Sometimes a light touch is best: When you're telling a joke or hammering a tiny finishing nail into a wall, a gentle delivery often succeeds most effectively...
Nobel laureate David Wineland announced today that he plans to leave the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) this fall and has accepted a...
One of the persistent challenges in 21 st century metrology is the need to measure ever-more-detailed properties of ever-smaller things, from microchip features...
Using a state-of-the-art device for measuring mass, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made their most precise...
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder have demonstrated a new mobile, ground-based...
In an arranged marriage of optics and mechanics, physicists have created microscopic structural beams that have a variety of powerful uses when light strikes...
If you have ever discovered a useful library book in the QA to QC shelf number range (Mathematics, Astronomy, and Physics), you have NIST’s Aristide Fanti to...
Accelerometers — devices that measure change in velocity — are built into automobiles, airplanes, cell phones, pacemakers, and scores of other products...
3D printing of metal objects is a booming industry, with the market for products and services worth more than an estimated $2.3 billion in 2015 – a nearly five...
GAITHERSBURG, Md.--When a ballerina pirouettes, twirling a full revolution, she looks just as she did when she started. But for electrons and other subatomic...
NIST scientists have devised a novel hybrid system for cooling superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD) – essential tools for many kinds of...
Contrary to the popular maxim, resistance is not futile. But it is quantized: The ratings of the heat-making resistors in your hair dryer or toaster ultimately...
Crystalline materials known as perovskites could become the next superstars of solar cells. Over the past few years, researchers have demonstrated that a...
BOULDER, Colo.—National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physicists have solved the seemingly intractable puzzle of how to control the quantum...
For industry and government labs to ensure their pressure-measurement machines are working correctly, they need a reliable source of pressure. Often, that...