Uudised

On 19 May 2015, the first Estonian satellite ESTCube-1 stopped operation. After two years and two weeks of successful operation in polar low Earth orbit, the solar panels producing electricity for ESTCube-1 stopped working. Thus the project achieved the objective set for the technical systems of the spacecraft: to create a satellite that would endure the conditions of space for at least two years.

143 years from its first publication, great thinkers of many disciplines consider Darwin’s The Descent of Man to be one of the world’s most influential books. This substantial piece of writing is now also available in the Estonian language. The book is presented on Friday, 24 April at 2 p.m. at the White Hall of the University of Tartu Museum.

This week, thousands self-designed aerological balloons equipped with cameras will be sent to the sky all over the world. These allow getting a bird’s-eye view of the Earth. Estonians participate in the global balloon challenge for the first time. The team of the University of Tartu will send their balloon up on 24 April, opening the new weather station located on the roof of the Institute of Physics.

The University of Tartu hosted a delegation from the Institute of Smart City of Shanghai University who consider Estonian research in urbanisation and urban development a role model. Together, Chinese and Estonian researchers develop urban planning solutions, social innovation models and sensing systems.

On 23 and 24 April, the UT Centre of Gene and Biotechnology hosts ten European top specialists in reproductive health of men and women. They will speak about intrauterine and early childhood determinants of the child’s health, the link between pregnancy disorders and the mother’s health later in life and how the environment and hormones affect the fertility of the baby, to name only some topics.

Two-year award will take Daniel B. Hess from the University at Buffalo to the Baltic states to study aging socialist-era housing. He will do his research at the Institute of Human Geography at the University of Tartu.

Mart Loog, UT Professor of Molecular Systems Biology, received a prestigious Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) amounting to almost two million euros. Loog is the fourth Estonian researcher to receive an elite ERC research grant. The European Research Council supports fresh scientific ideas that introduce unconventional, innovative approaches in emerging fields of research. To achieve this aim, the ERC awards four types of grants, the only evaluation criterion of which is top-level research.

Estonian researchers and entrepreneurs can now do in-depth analyses of the composition of various materials, especially their outermost layer. Among other functions, a new device of the University of Tartu gives feedback on the quality of nanomaterials or nanoscale surfaces. The Institute of Chemistry of the University of Tartu bought a measuring device that cost about one and a half million euros – the device for Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS).

An international jury announced new grantees of the financial support of the Vega fund of SEB Bank and the University of Tartu Idea Lab. The support fund of 14,700 euros was divided between three development projects selected from 23 submitted applications. When the selected projects reach the market, visually impaired people can be more independent, the work of researchers can be more efficient and quantifying training will be taken on a whole new level.

On 24 March, on the occasion of Johan Skytte memorial day, the UT Rector Professor Volli Kalm awards the Skytte medal to Professor emeritus Academician Ene Ergma. The medal acknowledges Ene Ergma’s devotion to the wellbeing of Estonian higher education and research and development activities as well as her contribution to the development of Estonia as a space nation.

Eight e-courses created at the University of Tartu were submitted to the contest “E-course quality label 2015”. Seven of them were considered worthy of the quality label. In total, 40 e-courses of different higher education institutions, vocational schools and general education schools were submitted for evaluation, 23 of which received the quality label. The quality label was awarded to the following e-courses of the University of Tartu:

On 20 March 2015, partial solar eclipse can be observed in Estonia. Tartu Old Observatory offers several exciting events on the occasion. The next partial solar eclipse with a similar scope will be visible from Estonia on 25 October 2022.

On Monday, 2 March 2015 the web course “Estimation of Measurement Uncertainty in Chemical Analysis” was launched the second time as a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course).

Already since the 1930s, the Estonian reference books left no doubt that the highest hill of the Sakala Upland is Rutu hill with its 145 metres. However, now the cartographers of Regio and the geographers of the University of Tartu have ascertained that there is a higher hill 5 kilometres north-east of Rutu hill – the 147‑metre Härjassaare hill, which had gone unnoticed for map readers so far.

On 2 March, the UT Botanical Garden opened its renovated palm house. The greenhouse that has been made more energy-efficient now offers better conditions for both plants and visitors. The renovation of the palm house of the UT Botanical Garden started in summer 2014. 95% of the collection was moved out of the greenhouse for the period of renovation works. Larger plants with their roots deep in the soil were covered up for the period.

The financial support of 2.5 million euros received from the ERA Chair measure of the European Commission strengthens the starting position of the synthetic biology centre set up at the Institute of Technology of the University of Tartu. Synthetic biology is a new research field that has gained attention in the past few years. It aims to construct cells with new functions that may in the future change entire industries.

Today, the researchers of the UT Institute of Technology will send the unique “Mars house”, the Self-Deployable Habitat for Extreme Environments (SHEE), off to France, where the structure will be added the life support systems and interior furnishings. After partners’ joint efforts, the habitat that has been dubbed after the complicated living conditions on Mars will be ready for use in a few months.

The joint research project between Samsung R&D Institute Japan and the Institute of Physics, the University of Tartu aims to find more efficient materials for white light emitting diodes (LEDs). The long-term competence on white LEDs developed at the Institute of Physics will be applied together with the leading technology corporation in the world.

Until 31 January 2015, applications are open for the international master programme “EACH – Excellence in Analytical Chemistry” that starts in autumn 2015. The programme is coordinated by the University of Tartu and carried out in the cooperation of four European universities.

Oxygen is an important gas, the amount of which has to be monitored in many fields of human activity, such as energy production, transport and medicine. For that purpose the sensors are used that transform the oxygen concentration in the surrounding environment to electric current and subsequently to bit-sequence. The newest gas sensors are based on thin film materials and the sensors that comprise merely one atomic layer are under the development.