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Feature Stories and Photo Essays

As the nation’s laboratory for measurement science, standards and technology, NIST has stimulated U.S. innovation and economic competitiveness through its world-class work in many areas of national importance. The following features provide big-picture views of the many research fields that NIST has helped to advance.

Photo collage includes tape measure, gas can, laptop keyboard, old-fashioned scale, bunch of grapes, and scientific equipment like a Kibble balance.

Why You Need Standards

Technical standards keep us safe, enable technology to advance, and help businesses succeed. They quietly make the modern world tick and prevent technological problems that you might not realize could even happen.
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Fabric face mask in black and white

Masks Under the Microscope

To understand how something works, it helps to see it up close. A team of researchers took this approach when studying the fabric masks that people wear to slow the spread of COVID-19. Check out the photos here.
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A sign saying "Welcome to Paradise" stands next to a burning building.

Piecing Together the Timeline of California’s Deadliest Wildfire

A monstrous wildfire known as the Camp Fire nearly razed the town of Paradise, California, in 2018 and remains the state’s deadliest and costliest wildfire to date. Within the turmoil left in the wake of the inferno, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
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A fire burns along the ground at the edge of a wooded area.

In the Eye of the Fire

NIST researchers have created a new camera system that offers an unprecedented, 360-degree view from inside a fire.
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Many different rectangular pieces of webby material are all wrapped up in a big ball. The pieces are each colored differently so that you can tell them apart in the bunch. These are meant to represent a graphene melt.

Materials by Design

A dash of artificial intelligence, a pinch of human ingenuity and a huge helping of collaboration... read about NIST's role in the recipes of Materials Genome Initiative.
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Two orangutans cling to a wire cage

To Each Mammal, Its Milk

Milk — it’s what distinguishes mammals from the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s also an incredibly complex substance, and scientists, including some at NIST, are working to identify the many chemical components of milk and the roles they play in nutrition, immunity, and other areas.
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Giant metal tubs are being opened and white vapor is puffing up into the face of one researcher who is in a protective suit with hood, gloves and eye protection. In the background, several other suited researchers discuss something.

Staying Chill, Even When Disaster Strikes

When most people prepare for a hurricane, they buy food and water. But when scientist Amanda Moors sees one of those big, red, pinwheel-shaped storms appear on the weather map, she buys liquid nitrogen.
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A Christmas tree is engulfed in flames. To the left is a chair. In front is a coffee table, rug and fishbowl. To the right is a tall bookshelf. There are 3 wrapped presents under the tree. A timer reads 8:04 seconds.

Behind the Scenes: The Making of a NIST Holiday Special

Every holiday season, hundreds of residential fires start with a Christmas tree. You may have seen NIST’s video that illustrates the dramatic difference between a fire started in a well-watered tree versus in a dry tree. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the video shoot.
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SRM Featured Image

Measurements Matter

The government has acronyms for seemingly everything. At NIST, one even has a registered trademark: SRM® is the “brand name” of our certified reference materials, the generic term for these vital tools.
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Ariel view of National Fire Research Facility

Built to House an Inferno

The new National Fire Research Laboratory aims to make buildings better and safer. The expanded facility can hold structures up to two stories tall and contain fires up to 20 megawatts of peak energy—that’s equivalent to a small home engulfed by fire!
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Detective X Featured Story Teaser Image

Who Was Detective X?

In the gangster era of Prohibition and the Great Depression, a physicist at the National Bureau of Standards, now NIST, brought modern ideas to the then-emerging field of forensic science.
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