Uudised

The quick development of information technology has brought the development of several geographic regions and created knowledge–based peripheries and centres. On 9 November at 14:15 in the University of Tartu’s assembly hall, Professor Mark Graham of the University of Oxford will talk about uneven geographies of power and participation in the internet era and ask why the digital divide has not been reduced more.

UT Professor of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology Ülo Mander was elected member of the pan-European academy Academia Europaea in the field of Earth and cosmic sciences. The membership of the academician recognises the professor’s international research work and continuing contribution to European science.

Do you have a science-based business idea but you do not have any money to start? Do you want to help to launch next revolutionary product or service? Vega fund, created in co-operation between SEB bank and the Universiy of Tartu, supports early stage science-based innovative business ideas with 36 000 euros. Applications are opened to: 1. A team of students or scientists who already have an innovative science-based solution to a common problem.

For the first time the Ministry of Education and Research presented the title Lecturer of the Year at the “Eestimaa õpib ja tänab (Estonia studies and expresses gratitude)” award gala and it was awarded to University of Tartu’s Professor of Analytical Chemistry Ivo Leito.

On October 7th 2015, 14.00-16.00, Ülikooli 16-102 guest lecturer Charlotte Hagström from Lund University will give a public lecture “Wheels of Change: Reflections on Doing Applied Cultural Analysis at Lund University”. Bicycle is not just related to doing sports or getting from the point A to B. Cycling is culture, even more – it is a variety of cultures at different times and places.

The Idea Lab starts their autumn season and invites students from all specialisations to the workshop “Kick-off Ideation” on Friday, 9 October at 16:00 (at Narva mnt 4) where Amid Moradganjeh, interaction designer with international experience, will give advice on how to recognise ideas with potential and how to find suitable team members.

From 20 to 25 September, several research institutions, incl. the University of Tartu and the university museums, open their doors for the Researchers’ Night Festival. In the course of the diverse programme, researchers come out of hiding from their laboratories and discuss generally educating topics in bars, the open air cinema and nature. Below are the events which involve people and institutions of the University of Tartu. The complete programme is available at teadlasteöö.ee/en.

In their fieldwork, researchers of the University of Tartu Estonian Marine Institute have for the first time surveyed in detail over 500 km2 of seabed in the Estonian economic zone of the Baltic Sea. During the works discoveries have been made which have not been documented by anyone.

The Nordic Mycological Congress takes place in Kääriku and during the event, 60 researches will go into nature to collect fungi and determine the DNA of the collected species. The gathered data will be entered in a global database which is developed by the University of Tartu researchers.

Three Estonian guys came up with a way to forge the holographic security features on imaginary future money and were the youngest team to win first place at the international Open Research Challenge contest in the category of photonics technology. A test device was installed at the University of Tartu Institute of Physics which demonstrates the creation of holograms. The international contest Open Research Challenge, organised by Friedrich-Alexander University, consisted of three categories: digital forensics, discrete optimisation and photonic technologies.

The University of Tartu Foundation granted the first Valda and Bernard Õun scholarship of 5000 euros to the research of doctoral student of the Faculty of Science and Technology Kaido Siimon who is developing gelatine–based scaffolds for skin cells that can be used for transplants.

This academic year, eighteen students started their master’s studies in the first Erasmus Mundus joint programme created by an Estonian university where in the two year master’s programme, all students complete their first year of studies in Tartu and second year in one of the three following universities: Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in France, Åbo Akademi in Finland and Uppsala University in Sweden.

For the first time, Estonian science is represented at the EXPO. The University of Tartu introduces the Mars house project in Milan in the Estonian pavilion’s science nest box.

The widening gap between the rich and poor is leading to segregation in more and more European cities and it decreases the social stability and competitive power of the cities. These conclusions are based on the first rigorous comparative study on segregation in European cities which was published in the book “Socio-economic segregation in European capital cities. East meets West”, under the direction of Tiit Tammaru, Professor of Urban and Population Geography at the University of Tartu.

In a recently published paper in Science, the University of Tartu’s plant ecology group, led by Prof. Martin Zobel, present the first global-scale empirical study of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal biogeography. Project fieldwork lasted from 2007 to 2012 and resulted in collection of 1014 environmental samples from six continents. The group’s results showed that many AM fungi are globally distributed but nonetheless require careful conservation.

From 24 to 27 August, the University of Tartu will host a high–level physics conference where the opening lecture will be held by 2014 Nobel Prize Laureate and Professor of Stanford University William E. Moerner. The lecture takes place on Monday, 24 August at 10.15 at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Physics. The International Conference on Hole Burning, Single Molecule and Related Spectroscopies: Science and Applications (HBSM–2015) is a continuation to the long–term international conference series which started in Estonia in 1987.

Research revealed that decisions regarding the environment and biodiversity are largely made without sufficient data. The world’s leading journal Science published a research conducted by scientists from Canada, Germany, Israel and Estonia who gathered a representative global dataset to study the relations between biodiversity and the productivity of the ecosystem in grasslands.

In July, the position of Vice Rector for Academic Affairs at the University of Tartu will be taken up by Mart Noorma, current Vice Dean for Academic Affairs in the Faculty of Science and Technology and Associate Professor of Optical Metrology.

The research data stored in the PlutoF cloud database was assigned with 486 912 DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers in the course of a few days. The registration of permanent identifiers is done by using the DataCite Eesti Consortium which helps to ensure that the high–quality scientific resources created by the network of member organisations can be easily identified and used.

Estonian researchers and farmers start to investigate together with the German Aerospace Center novel methods for characterization of grass and crops from data acquired by the German radar satellite formation TanDEM-X. TanDEM-X is an innovative radar satellite mission operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) since 2010. Two twin satellites, flying in close formation, acquire microwave data at X-band (wavelength: 3cm).