Short answers, pulled from the story.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness through measurement science, standards, and technology. It operates laboratories in Gaithersburg, Maryland and Boulder, Colorado, and employs about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support staff.
NIST was founded in 1901 as the National Bureau of Standards, following legislation proposed by Congressman James H. Southard of Ohio. It was renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988 to reflect its broader mission.
Four NIST researchers have received Nobel Prizes in Physics: William Daniel Phillips in 1997, Eric Allin Cornell in 2001, John Lewis Hall in 2005, and David Jeffrey Wineland in 2012. This is the largest number of Nobel Prizes in Physics won by researchers at any United States government laboratory. A fifth Nobel, in Chemistry, was awarded in 2011 to Dan Shechtman for quasicrystal research he conducted at NIST's Metallurgy Division between 1982 and 1984.
Under the National Construction Safety Team Act, NIST conducted the official investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and the 47-story 7 World Trade Center after the 11th of September 2001 attacks. Lead investigator Shyam Sunder oversaw the inquiry. The final report on the WTC Towers, which included 30 recommendations for improving building and occupant safety, was released in October 2005, and the report on 7 World Trade Center was completed in November 2008.
NIST published its Cybersecurity Framework in February 2014 as voluntary guidance for organizations to manage and reduce cybersecurity risk. Executive Order 13800 later made the Framework mandatory for United States federal government agencies. Version 1.1 was published in April 2018, and a draft of version 2.0 was released for public comment through the 4th of November 2023.
In September 2013, reports in The Guardian and The New York Times alleged that the National Security Agency inserted a cryptographic pseudorandom number generator called Dual EC DRBG into NIST standard SP 800-90, with a backdoor allowing the NSA to predict the generator's outputs and decrypt protected data. The NSA had worked to get the standard approved for worldwide use in 2006. NIST ultimately rescinded the EC-DRBG algorithm from the standard after reopening its public comment period.