Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and science that includes mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering, computer science, others. Robotics deals with the design, construction and use of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, information processing; these technologies are used to develop machines that can substitute for humans and replicate human actions. Robots can be used in many situations and for lots of purposes, but today many are used in dangerous environments, manufacturing processes, or where humans cannot survive. Robots can take on any form but some are made to resemble humans in appearance; this is said to help in the acceptance of a robot in certain replicative behaviors performed by people. Such robots attempt to replicate walking, speech, cognition, or any other human activity. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature; the concept of creating machines that can operate autonomously dates back to classical times, but research into the functionality and potential uses of robots did not grow until the 20th century.

Throughout history, it has been assumed by various scholars, inventors and technicians that robots will one day be able to mimic human behavior and manage tasks in a human-like fashion. Today, robotics is a growing field, as technological advances continue. Many robots are built to do jobs that are hazardous to people, such as defusing bombs, finding survivors in unstable ruins, exploring mines and shipwrecks. Robotics is used in STEM as a teaching aid; the advent of nanorobots, microscopic robots that can be injected into the human body, could revolutionize medicine and human health. Robotics is a branch of engineering that involves the conception, design and operation of robots; this field overlaps with electronics, computer science, artificial intelligence, mechatronics and bioengineering. The word robotics was derived from the word robot, introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R. U. R., published in 1920. The word robot comes from the Slavic word robota; the play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots, creatures who can be mistaken for humans – similar to the modern ideas of androids.

Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother Josef Čapek as its actual originator. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word robotics was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction short story "Liar!", published in May 1941 in Astounding Science Fiction. Asimov was unaware. In some of Asimov's other works, he states that the first use of the word robotics was in his short story Runaround, where he introduced his concept of The Three Laws of Robotics. However, the original publication of "Liar!" Predates that of "Runaround" by ten months, so the former is cited as the word's origin. In 1948, Norbert Wiener formulated the principles of the basis of practical robotics. Autonomous only appeared in the second half of the 20th century; the first digitally operated and programmable robot, the Unimate, was installed in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them.

Commercial and industrial robots are widespread today and used to perform jobs more cheaply and more reliably, than humans. They are employed in some jobs which are too dirty, dangerous, or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are used in manufacturing, assembly and packaging, transport and space exploration, weaponry, laboratory research and the mass production of consumer and industrial goods. There are many types of robots. Although being diverse in application and form, they all share three basic similarities when it comes to their construction: Robots all have some kind of mechanical construction, a frame, form or shape designed to achieve a particular task. For example, a robot designed to travel across heavy dirt or mud, might use caterpillar tracks; the mechanical aspect is the creator's solution to completing the assigned task and dealing with the physics of the environment around it. Form follows function. Robots have electrical components. For example, the robot with caterpillar tracks would need some kind of power to move the tracker treads.

That power comes in the form of electricity, which will have to travel through a wire and originate from a battery, a basic electrical circuit. Petrol powered machines that get their power from petrol still require an electric current to start the combustion process, why most petrol powered machines like cars, have batteries; the electrical aspect of robots is used for movement and operation (robots need some level of e

Efforts to stem the Deepwater Horizon oil spill were ongoing from the time that the Deepwater Horizon exploded on 4/20/2010 until the well was sealed by a cap on July 15, 2010. Various species of dolphins and other mammals and the endangered sea turtles have been killed either directly or indirectly by the oil spill; the Deepwater Horizon spill has surpassed in volume the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest to originate in U. S.-controlled waters. Much of the oil is so far down in the Gulf that only nature, including microbes, will be able to remove it using a process called bioremediation. Terry Hazen of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said the process could take months or years, but after six weeks of research, he said that microbes could work in 84 °F water as opposed to colder-temperature waters. The A Whale, an oil tanker converted into a giant oil skimmer owned by the Taiwan Marine Transport Co, could do little because of BP's use of chemical dispersants, the company said.

Robert Bea of The University of California, who worked on the Ixtoc spill and the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, said the old methods would be the best ones. Dispersants, he said, did not work except in keeping beaches clean, they hurt the environment; the first attempts to stop the oil spill were to use remotely operated underwater vehicles to close the blowout preventer valves on the well head. The second technique, placing a 125-tonne containment dome over the largest leak and piping the oil to a storage vessel on the surface, failed when gas leaking from the pipe combined with cold water formed methane hydrate crystals that blocked the opening at the top of the dome. On May 14, engineers began the process of positioning a 6-inch wide riser insertion tube into the 21-inch wide burst pipe. There was a stopper-like washer around the tube that plugs the end of the riser and diverts the flow into the insertion tube; the collected gas was flared and oil stored on the board of drillship Discoverer Enterprise.

924,000 US gallons of oil was collected before removal of the tube. On May 26, BP tried to close the well using a technique called "top kill", which failed; this process involved pumping heavy drilling fluids through two 3-inch lines into the blowout preventer to restrict the flow of oil before sealing it permanently with cement. On May 29, BP moved to the Lower Marine Riser Package Cap Containment System by removing the damaged riser from the top of the blowout preventer and covering the pipe by the cap which connects it to a riser; the cap was attached on June 3, the system began to capture the leaking oil. On June 6, the CEO of BP Tony Hayward, stated that the amount captured was "probably the vast majority of the oil." However, Ira Leifer, a member of the Flow Rate Technical Group, claimed that more oil was escaping than before the riser was cut and the cap containment system was placed. On June 16, a second containment system connected directly to the blowout preventer became operational carrying oil and gas through a subsea manifold to the Q4000 service vessel with a processing capacity for about 5,000 barrels of oil per day.

Oil and gas are both burned on Q4000 in a clean-burning system. As Discoverer Enterprise's processing capacity was insufficient, drillship Discoverer Clear Leader and the floating production and offloading vessel Helix Producer 1 were added, offloading oil with tankers Evi Knutsen, Juanita; each tanker has a total capacity of 750,000 barrels. In addition, FPSO Seillean, well testing vessel Toisa Pisces would process oil, they are offloaded by shuttle tanker Loch Rannoch. On July 5, BP announced that its one-day oil recovery effort accounted for 24,980 barrels of oil, the flaring off of 57.1 million cubic feet of natural gas. The total oil collection to date for the spill was estimated at 657,300 barrels; the government's estimates suggested the cap and other equipment were capturing less than half of the oil leaking from the sea floor as of late June. On July 10, robots removed the containment cap to replace it with a better-fitting cap. A broken pipe was taken out on July 11 and replaced with a flange spool resembling a pipe, on top of which the new cap was located.

The well integrity test was scheduled to take place after the installation of a three-ram capping stack over the lower marine riser package of the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible rig on July 13. On July 14, BP announced. On July 15, 2010, BP announced that it had plugged the oil leak using a fitted cap; the cap, standing 30 feet high, is now bolted to the failed blowout preventer. It is a temporary solution. President Barack Obama cautiously welcomed the news that the leak had been stopped, though stressing, "it is important we don't get ahead of ourselves". If the cap holds for the planned 48 hours, its valves will be reopened temporarily in order to allow for seismic tests to ensure tha

"Vincent" is a song by German singer Sarah Connor, released on 5 April 2019 by Polydor Records as the lead single from her upcoming tenth studio album Herz Kraft Werke. It was released along with the album announcement. Connor co-wrote the song with Ulf Sommer. Connor wrote the track after hearing from a mother, she said that the song "stands symbolically for all boys and girls in puberty, in search of orientation and identity". The name is fictitious. Idolator called the track a "soaring pop anthem". On 12 April 2019 "Vincent" debuted in the German charts at number 29 before dropping down to number 77 by the middle of May, by which time the song had been censored or banned by some radio stations on account of the sexual content of its opening lyrics. Consistent with the Streisand effect the song subsequently rose to a peak position of number 9 as the track remained in the German charts for the rest of 2019. Connor announced the track on her Instagram in early April

Events from the year 1675 in England. Monarch – Charles II Parliament – Cavalier 4 March – John Flamsteed appointed as "astronomical observator", in effect, the first Astronomer Royal. 25 March – loss of HMY Mary off Anglesey. 13 April – Parliament refuses to vote funds for King Charles. 21 June – reconstruction of St Paul's Cathedral in London under Christopher Wren begins to replace that destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. 10 August – King Charles II places the foundation stone of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in London. 20 September – the Great Fire of Northampton occurs in the county town. The Green Ribbon Club founded. King Charles issues a "Proclamation for the suppression of Coffee Houses" due to the political activity which occurred in the newly popular establishments. Bethlem Hospital, moves to new buildings in Moorfields, designed by Robert Hooke. Briggflatts Meeting House built near Sedbergh. William Wycherley's satirical play The Country Wife. 1 April – George Shelvocke, privateer 29 May – Humphry Ditton, mathematician 2 September – William Somervile, poet 11 October – Samuel Clarke, philosopher 24 October – Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham and politician Edmund Curll and publisher 28 July – Bulstrode Whitelocke, lawyer 28 November – Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh, English Civil War soldier 6 December – John Lightfoot and scholar Humphrey Henchman, Bishop of London

The Atlantic Coast Conference Softball Tournament is the conference championship tournament in college softball for the Atlantic Coast Conference. It is a single-elimination tournament, with seeding based on regular season records; the winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Softball Championship each season. The ACC Softball Tournament is a single-elimination tournament held each year at various ACC campus stadiums. Thirteen of the fifteen current all-sport members of the conference sponsor softball. Miami and Wake Forest do not sponsor softball teams. Duke softball began competing in the 2018 season. Clemson is replacing Women's Diving with Softball beginning the 2020 season; the 2018 tournament features a first round in addition to quarterfinals and championship. It is assumed that all 12 teams make the tournament, but no online source has been found specifying how many teams are in the first round. Italics indicate school no longer sponsors softball in the ACC

"Long Ago, Prophets Knew" called "Long Ago, Prophets Knew, Christ would come born a Jew", is an English Christian Advent carol written by Reverend Fred Pratt Green in 1970. "Long Ago, Prophets Knew" was written by Methodist minister Fred Pratt Green in 1970 at the behest of John Wilson. It was self-published in his "26 Hymns" a year later; the carol gained popularity within the Church of England when it was published within the More Hymns for Today hymnal in 1980 and Hymns Ancient and Modern – New Standard" in 1983. In 1986, when The New English Hymnal was being compiled with hymns appropriate for Eucharist services being prioritised, "Long Ago, Prophets Knew" was included at the behest of the former Archdeacon of Hackney, George Timms, in order to fill required spaces in the hymnal for feast days and promote newer hymns. "Long Ago, Prophets Knew" was one of around 50 hymns written after 1950 to be included in the collection of 506 hymns. Though the carol was written for Advent, it has been used as a Christmas carol.

Baptists use the carol in connection with Bible readings from 2 Samuel:7 and Romans 16:17-25. Methodists use the carol on the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Green set it to the tune of "Personent hodie". While the carol was written for organ with a 66.666 metre, an additional alternate accompanying supplement for thirteen handbells was written to tie into the chorus of "ring bells, ring, ring!" The carol was an example of a modern hymn that utilised an older style of including a repetitive monosyllable in the chorus