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(text by John C Blackburn) Tartu is a different town in the summer. The days long and the streets quiet, Tartu is a student’s town, and is exciting when the students are in town. Its charm lies in its youthful…

Measurement science influences other sciences and sometimes from quite an unexpected angle. A recent review on extinction of the dinosaurs (the “Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary”, to put it in a scientifically correct way) published in the prestigious Science…

On Nov 29, 2011 a seminar was held in Tallinn, which summarized the results of the study “Metrology in Estonia, its current status, economic impact, trends and needs analysis” carried out during 2010-2011 jointly by BDA Consulting, University of Tartu…

This week a joint project will finish between University of Tartu and the German National Metrology Institute (PTB – Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) on providing training in Metrology in Chemistry for Indian analytical chemists. In the framework of this collabortion Ivo Leito…

For elimination of the disadvantages of the traditional procedure of smoking of fish and meat the so-called liquid smoke has been developed. Some steps during the production of liquid smoke reduce the PAH concentration in liquid smoke and in the…

Today on 27.09.2011 on the Laboratory days event at Finnish Environmental Administration – SYKE (Helsinki, Finland) Ivo Leito gave a presentation “Education in Metrology in Chemistry – why and how?”. The first part of the presentation demonstrates the strong need…

On 26.08.2011 the introductory meeting for first-year AMS students was held. Ivo Leito gave overview of the AMS programme, timetable of autumn semester 2011 and some practical aspects of living and studying in Tartu. The PDF file of this presentation…

Last week (on July 22, 2011) the closing ceremony of the MSC Summer School 2011 took place in Poznań (Poland). Results of the learning evaluation and student game were presented and certificates were awarded to the participants. The next MSC…

On Monday, July 11, 2011 the fourth Measurement Science in Chemistry International Summer School started in a west-central city of Poland in Poznań. There are students from fourteen countries. The summer school covers a wide-ranging list of topics: Importance of…

In roughly one month – on Sunday Jul 10 – the 2011 Summer School of the Measurement Science in Chemistry consortium will start. This is already the fourth of its kind and is this time organized by University of Warsaw…

Two AMS students will defend their master’s theses on June 8, 2011 at 10.15 a.m. (Tartu, Ravila Street, 14A, room 1021). The topics of the theses are related to testing of electrical power sources (Martynas Pelakauskas – ESTCube-1 Satellite Electrical…

Modern technologies allow very accurate measurements of atomic weights and isotope ratios of elements. This is of high importance in solving research problems in others fields. For example, accurate measurement of isotope ratios of carbon in the sample can be…

Unfortunately, it is not rare that during preparation of food substances with cancerogenic and/or mutagen activity are unwillingly introduced into food. A typical representatives of this group of dangerous substances are N-nitrosamines (NAs) which are found in various meat products.…

The light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device, which converts electric current into visible radiation, i.e. visible light. LEDs were discovered by accident in 1907, but no practical use was made of the discovery for several decades. Now they can…

LC-MS (Liquid chromatography mass spectrometry) with ESI (electrospray) ion source (LC-ESI-MS) enjoys ever increasing popularity as a powerful and versatile analytical tool. It has become the number one technique for a large number of different analytical tasks, ranging form pesticide…

Smoking as a way of preparation of fish and meat has been known to the humankind since the Stone Age. Smoking represents set of the chemical, thermal, diffusive and biochemical processes proceeding in preliminary salted product. Smoked fish contains compounds…

On 28.03.2011 Ivo Leito gave talk “ATR-FT-IR spectroscopy in the region of 550-230 cm-1 for identification of inorganic pigments” at the the 241th ACS National Meeting, Spring 2011 in Anaheim (CA). The presentation describes an analytical method for recording ATR-FT-IR…

On a seminar on measurement quality in the framework of the conference ChemBio Finland 2011 a presentation “Metrology in Chemistry – from pipette to mass spectrometry, from National Metrology Institute to student lab” was given by Ivo Leito. The presentation…

In the process of development and perfection of measurement technologies it became clear that all standards are not ideal. At measurement standards of the basic units it is necessary to take not man-made objects but much more perfect samples already…

Beer is the world’s most widely consumed and probably the oldest of alcoholic beverages; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. What is beer? Simply put, beer is a fermented, hop flavored, malt sugared, liquid.…

Most people (especially in the northern countries) have had the extremely annoying experience that in some (usually somewhat colder than average) morning the car will not start, because there is not enough charge in the battery. The battery is a…

Among the central reserach topics at Institute of Chemistry, University of Tartu is design and acidity measurements of superstrong acids – so-called superacids. These are acids that are more acidic than sulfuric acid (H2SO4), which is usually considered an epitome…

More than half of the solar energy that reaches the Earth and is absorbed by land srfaces is used for evaporation of water. Evapotranspiration is a joint process of moisture evaporation from the land and transpiration from plants. Recently a…

OECD has published the results of PISA 2009, the most recent edition of its Programme for International Student Assessment. The assessment methodology evaluates a number of abilities and skills of students, such as accessing and retrieving, integrating and interpreting information,…

Perfluorochemicals – most notably perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and related compounds – have numerous industrial uses. They are highly stable molecules that do not decompose easily in the environment. It has been established that polar bears – the top predators in…

On Oct 26-27, 2010 a graduation ceremony was held at the EC JRC-IRMM (Geel, Belgium) where the first Euromaster certificates of the MSC Euromaster consortium were awarded to the first 32 graduates of the MSC consortium. The home universities of…

With the continuing globalization authenticity of food is becoming more and more important. This is especially true for highly valued types of food, such as certain olive oil, wines, honey, etc. Determination of authenticity – both geographical and botanical –…

     On 29.09.2010 Maiu Varner defended her master’s thesis “The role of coatings in maintaining stability of panel paintings” at UT Institute of Chemistry.      Panel paintings made on wood (e.g. icons) are very common in European Churches, especially in the eastern…

Compilation containing the full set of lecture slides of the Measurement Science in Chemistry (MSC) Summer School 2010 is now available for download in the Summer school section of the MSC web page (). These lecture materials in a compact…

Mass spectrometer (MS) with electrospray ionization (ESI) coulpled to a liquid chromatograph (LC) has during the recent decade become the most widespread analysis method of analysis for a vast number of microconstituents and contaminants (pesticides, mycotoxins, drug residues, etc) in…

pH value is the best known parameter for characterizing acidity of a solution. The pH of a neutral solution is around 7. In acidic solutions, such as battery acid, pH is around 0. In alkaline solutions, such as certain bleaches…

Yesterday (on July 31, 2010) the closing ceremony of the MSC Summer School 2010 took place in Lepanina (Estonia). Results of the learning evaluation and student game were presented and certificates were awarded to the participants. Traditionally the summer school…

The trend of increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is well known. During recent years another, possibly as serious and wide-ranging, trend has caught the attention of scientists: decrease of dissolved oxygen concentration (deoxygenation) in the world’s oceans. In a…

Today (23.07.2010) the summer school continued on water: canoeing on the Navesti River (Soomaa National Park), followed by bogwalking in the bogs. A very typical for Estonia form of nature. Pictures are available from Picasaweb (please scroll down).

On Monday, July 19, 2010 the third Measurement Science in Chemistry International Summer School started at the coast of the Baltic Sea in Lepanina (Pärnumaa, Estonia). There are students from nine countries (Slovenia, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, France, Portugal, Finland, Thailand,…

Passive House is a concept followed after the energy efficient house but it shouldn’t be confused with Zero Energy Buildings. Passive House is a building designed carefully and built with modern insulation and building materials and techniques and controlled with…

In passive house design and construction we have 2 main measurements. First one is the differential pressure measurement (also called as the Blower-Door Test) (EVS-EN 13829:2001) (modified version of ISO 9972:1996, Determination of air permeability of buildings). Differential pressure measurement…

Sudan dyes (most important of them are Sudan I, II, III and IV) are a family of compounds in the class of azo dyes that are used for different industrial and scientific applications (coloring of fuel, staining for microscopy, etc).…

Mycotoxins are a class of food contaminants that are synthesized by certain species of fungi. Differently from, e.g. pesticides, mycotoxins are non-anthropogenic – they are not added to food by humans. However, correctness in handling and production of food can…

In roughly one month – on Monday Jul 19 – the 2010 Summer School of the Measurement Science in Chemistry consortium will start. This is already the third of its kind and is this time organized by the Applied Measurement…

On Tuesday Jun 8 Gert Suurkuusk defended his master thesis on a very interesting topic: Determination of Cannabinoids by Gas Chromatography. The title of the thesis is Validation of the gas chromatographic method for THC, CBD and CBN determination. THC…

Today all seven AMS master’s candidates successfullt defended their theses. Congratulations! The PDF files of all the theses are available for download from here (See at the end of the list: Dana-Maria Bunaciu, Klodian Dhoska, Urmas Joost, Madis Juurma, Liina…

Seven AMS students will defend their master’s theses on June 8, 2010. The topics of the theses range from high-accuracy metrology (Klodian Dhoska – Systematic effects in automated mass measurements) and thermal imagers (Madis Juurma – Effects of environmental conditions…

More and more measurements are made by means of different sensors. At the same time estimation of measurement uncertainty of measurement results is becoming increasingly important. Traditionally there has been no “single-point-reference” with information and guidance on uncertainty estimation for…

Date rape drug refers to a drug that can be used to assist in the commission of a sexual assault, such as date rape (Wikipedia). detection of traces of date rape drugs in drinks is very important in criminalistics and…

On May 3, 2010 Signe Vahur from chair of analytical chemistry defended her doctoral thesis “Expanding the possibilities of ATR-FT-IR spectroscopy in determination of inorganic pigments”. ATR-FT-IR has been used by conservation scientists for a long time. This technique enables…

Last Friday we finalized the submission of the proposal for obtaining the prestigious Erasmus Mundus label for our programme. The proposal was submitted as a collaborative effort (which is the essence or Erasmus Mundus) of University of Tartu, Uppsala University,…

Every now and then measurements or chemical analyses show up in the awarded Nobel prize descriptions. I recently came across the Nobel lecture of John B. Fenn, the inventor (together with Koichi Tanaka) of the ESI ionization method for mass…

In one week time the Student Days in Tartu will start. Every year before the beginning of exam session in the middle of spring Student Days are held. On 26th of April at 6 o’clock the program starts with awakening…

Besides the well-established LoD and LoQ as measures of detection ability of a procedure, laboratories are increasingly often required to establish also the decision threshold (CCalpha) and detection capability (CCbeta) for their procedures. There is still quite some confusion how…