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Briana Capistran wears safety glasses as she poses smiling in the lab with computers and other equipment in the background.

Speeding Up the Wheels of Justice: How NIST Resources Can Help Crime Labs Work Faster

January 8, 2025

Forensic science is not as easy as it looks on TV. But NIST resources are helping crime labs examine evidence more efficiently — so the justice system can work

Your Future Medications Could Be Personalized for You on a 3D Printer

June 12, 2024

Your future medications could be made on a 3D printer, and a NIST researcher is working to make sure that process is safe.

Diana Ortiz-Montalvo, wearing safety glasses and holding a small circular filter with tweezers, poses with Abigail Lindstrom in the lab.

Microplastics Mystery: Sampling Airborne Microplastics at a Recycling Facility

October 11, 2023

During National Hispanic Heritage Month, a NIST researcher shares how her upbringing in Puerto Rico inspired her to study air quality.

A person in a baseball cap and face mask stands at a computer surrounded by scientific equipment, including a curving black plastic tube.

NIST Partnership Helps Communities Manage Unknown Dangers in Common Street Drugs

March 16, 2023

When you buy a medication at a pharmacy, you know what’s in it. When someone buys street drugs, they have no idea what they’re really getting.

Camila Espina Young poses outdoors for a head shot

Hurricane Maria Recollections, Software Nostalgia, The Brothers Engineering: A Sample of Stories on NIST Social Media

November 9, 2022

The work happening at NIST can often be described as more than simply “work.”

$Micrograph shows fractures appearing at junction of enamel and dentin.$

Teeth: From Materials Science to Dentistry and Evolutionary Biology

February 2, 2022

As a happily retired materials scientist from NIST, I have continued a long-standing interest in how materials deform and fracture under high stress. My

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

May 5, 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

Internships in the Time of COVID: A Q&A With Shelby Platner and NIST's Zach Trautt

February 4, 2021

Across the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), internships are a very important experience for students and staff members alike. But for most

My Stay-at-Home Lab Shows How Face Coverings Can Slow the Spread of Disease

June 11, 2020

Editor’s note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing face coverings in public settings. Since COVID-19 spreads mainly from person to

How Robots Could Teach Us to Trust AI

April 28, 2020

The influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere in our lives. It helps us pick movies to stream, recommends old friends to reconnect with, and

A Step in the Right Direction: Building a Better Army Boot

February 4, 2020

Perhaps for as many as 40,000 years, people have been protecting their feet with some type of covering, initially using animal hides and fur. Today, footwear

Better Image-Quality Measurements for Bomb Squads

May 18, 2017

I’ve been interested in science ever since I was a child. If you had told 8-year-old me that I was going to be a physicist, then I would have been very excited

Carbon Nanotubular: SURFing into the Sciences

May 5, 2017

I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to science. When anyone asks what inspires me to be a scientist, I tell them that it’s amazing to add to the collective

Taking a Closer Look at Old Photos

February 16, 2017

My mom is a painter, so I grew up in a messy house full of brushes, twisted tubes of paint, pots of ink, plaster busts of various Romans, rolls of papers, and

A Smart Window to Sustainable Development: A Scientist’s Story

December 1, 2016

I think curiosity is at the root of all scientific careers. That, and insecurity. In my formative years, I felt compelled to assign a rational explanation to

Make a Mint Using Measurement Science

May 2, 2016

Put your hands together. Now move them back and forth to rub them against each other. Feel that heat? That’s from friction. No matter if it’s between siblings