The National Institute of Standards and Technology is famous for always taking the art and science of measurement to the next decimal place. Now, tons of dirt are moving at NIST's headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., to make way for a world-class laboratory hosting some of the most tightly controlled environments on the planet.

The argument for the Advanced Measurement Laboratory (AML) is simple: NIST's buildings, which were constructed nearly 40 years ago when integrated circuits were new, can't handle ever more demanding measurement research. "We have to start over," says physicist Robert Celotta, a NIST veteran looking toward an era of nanoscience and nanoengineering. Already, some of NIST's instruments are so sensitive that spark plugs firing almost a kilometer away disturb them.