Science & Technology

Innovative product development and manufacturing is not new in Pittsburgh. Each week, Pop City tech and innovation reporter Deb Smit has a plethora of companies and concepts to choose from when reporting on the next big thing.

Imagine a material able to detect tiny tumors in the human body and a variation of that material that can improve the conversion of crude oil into plastic.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh working on nanoscale alloys have demonstrated materials with properties to detect cancer sooner. One nanometer is about the size of a double stranded helix (remember your high school science DNA lessons?), and it’s smaller than the average human cell.

The alloys have multiple properties, not just related to what makes up a material.

Carnegie Mellon University’s WorldKit system allows a user to “paint” interfaces onto everyday objects and surfaces.

“Literally you can put a touch screen anywhere on your environment with WorldKit,” said CMU Ph.D. student Robert Xiao. “We believe this to be the future of computer interaction, where we bring interaction out from our screens and out onto the world around us.”

  Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is hosting a first-of-its-kind computer security competition. The goal is to find the next generation of great computer minds. 90.5 WESA's Morning Edition host, Josh Raulerson, talks with CMU professor David Brumley, who helped to organize the event.

  The Big Brain Theory premiered this week on the Discovery Channel. The reality TV series seeks to find the next big innovators through extreme engineering challenges. All of the contestants must work on teams but the threat of elimination means individual creativity is also necessary. Contestants Eric Whitman and Joel Ifill come from Carnegie Mellon University, and live in Pittsburgh. They talk about the pressures they encountered on the Big Brain Theory.

Thousands of high school students from across the country will compete in a first-of-its-kind computer security competition starting today. It’s being run out of Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Morning Edition host Josh Raulerson speaks with CMU professor David Brumley, who helped to organize the event.

Ticks are about as well-loved as invasive dental surgery, so it’s likely a relief to many that 2013 is forecast to be an average or below average tick year, according to the Carey Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

Despite that prediction, it’s still important to be wary of ticks, said Ed Rajotte, a professor of entomology at Penn State.

An institute formed in 1913 to help support basic chemistry research in Pittsburgh has been given Historic Landmark Status by the American Chemical Society. The Mellon Institute, which was eventually absorbed into Carnegie Mellon University, was recognized in a small ceremony Thursday for the work that went on inside its walls between the two great wars.

People may soon be able to charge purchases to their personal accounts with the tips of their fingers, thanks to a new invention from four students at Carnegie Mellon University.

Brian Groudan, Kelly Lau-Kee, Umang Patel and Christian Reyes came together in their senior year to create PayTango, a new technology that identifies a person's fingerprint for use as a human debit card.

  Each week, the e-zine Pop City publishes stories of Pittsburgh’s newest innovations, startups and more. Pop City Tech and Innovation reporter Debra Smit joins us now for a look at Pittsburgh’s innovation news. Could Pittsburgh become a hub for "big data?"

Imagine this situation: There is a fire in a warehouse creeping toward explosive material.

But instead of the fire department sending in firefighters, a robot saves the day by moving the material to a safe location.

A robotics team at Carnegie Mellon University is working to create that robot.

The team says the robot looks like a monkey and is named CHIMP (CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform).

The machine is being built to work in human situations with tools normal responders would work with.