Hardening Homes Against Wildfires, Grocery Scale Standards, Gravity's Effect on Time

Also in this issue: two NIST chemists whose lives were taken too soon, Champlain Towers South investigation update, the physics of cranes

View as a Web Page A biweekly news digest from the National Institute of Standards and Technology MARCH 1, 2022 Table of Contents JILA Atomic Clocks Measure Einstein's General Relativity at Millimeter Scale NIST Offers First-of-a-Kind Guidance for Holistic Home and Community Wildfire Protection NIST Researchers Link Cutting-Edge Gravity Research to Safer Operation of Construction Cranes Piecing Together the Profiles of Two NIST Chemists Taken Too Soon How Do You Know You're Getting What You Pay For at the Grocery Store? Social Spotlight: Alshae' Logan More News From NIST Featured Video: Einstein, Time, and Very Small Things Endnote: For Good Measure JILA Atomic Clocks Measure Einstein's General Relativity at Millimeter Scale JILA physicists have shown that two tiny atomic clocks, separated by just the width of a sharp pencil tip, tick at different rates. READ MORE NIST Offers First-of-a-Kind Guidance for Holistic Home and Community Wildfire Protection Backed by the latest fire science, a new report describes dozens of protective actions that can be taken in and around homes. READ MORE NIST Researchers Link Cutting-Edge Gravity Research to Safer Operation of Construction Cranes Fundamental physics unexpectedly inspired new insights into the maneuvers that crane operators can take to safely and quickly transport heavy loads at construction sites. READ MORE Piecing Together the Profiles of Two NIST Chemists Taken Too Soon On April 13, 1975, in Wheaton, Maryland, a shooter thought to be targeting Black people killed Connie Stanley and John Sligh Jr. This blog post is dedicated to their life stories and their science. READ MORE How Do You Know You're Getting What You Pay For at the Grocery Store? Inspectors in every U.S. state inspect scales at grocery stores by using standard weights and rigorous procedures to help ensure the measurements are done correctly. READ MORE Head to Facebook and get to know postdoctoral researcher Alshae' Logan, who joined NIST to understand pneumonia-causing bacteria in plumbing systems. MORE NEWS FROM NIST Feb. 18, 2022, Update: NIST Champlain Towers South Investigation Adds New Expert Team Members Miami-based N. Emel Ganapati, a social scientist, will lead interviews of residents, first responders, family members and others with knowledge of the building and the events surrounding its collapse. NIST Seeks Input to Update Cybersecurity Framework, Supply Chain Guidance Got ideas about how to improve the framework's effectiveness or how well it works with other cybersecurity resources? NIST wants to hear them. Commerce Department Awards $54 Million in American Rescue Act Grants to Increase Access to Advanced Manufacturing Opportunities The funding will support 13 high-impact projects related to pandemic response. Commerce Is Home to Black Leaders in STEM Education and Research During Black History Month in February, the Department of Commerce featured STEM researchers from its agencies, including NIST's William Ratcliff, who is working to understand novel materials that could be critical for new computers and other devices. Small shifts in time mean big changes for how we understand the world. More than 100 years ago, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity proposed that the gravity of large objects like Earth distorts the flow of time. NIST's newest clock finds Einstein's theory works on a millimeter scale, narrowing the gap between quantum physics and our larger understanding of our world and the universe. For Good Measure Wildfires are becoming more frequent and are burning greater areas of land. What was once typically a May-to-October wildfire season has now extended to a wider range of the year, as evidenced by the December-January wildfire in Colorado that affected many NIST staff in the Boulder region. Our agency has long conducted research on how wildfires spread, in specific ways such as through embers and in specific events such as the 2018 Camp Fire in California and the 2016 Chimney Tops Fire in Tennessee. Now, our new guide for hardening homes against wildfires joins a NIST tool that helps communities evaluate fire hazards and a large body of ongoing research you can learn about by going to the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Group page. —Ben P. Stein, Managing Editor

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