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Science Articles & Cool Facts

Fact: Where Did The Word Robot Come From ?

Firstly the word robot comes from the Czech word ‘robotnik‘ which means forced labour or even slave. Robots have mostly always been portrayed as helpers and servents of humanity.
It’s only in recent years that the image of robots has been upgraded to sentient beings with minds of their own e.g. transformers and even IRobot.
Anyway the word was first introduced by playwright Karel Capek in his play ‘RUR – Rossum’s Universal Robots‘ and it’s from there that the word and idea became popular. The first robot to be developed was by Joseph Engelberger and George Devol back in 1961 . The first robot was basically a clawed arm that dropped hot steel car parts into water for cooling.
90% of robots today are used in factories, working on production lines and often handling dangerous materials that humans would find difficult or even impossible to handle. Other uses include exploration such as deep sea exploration and mining.
The Moon is moving away from the Earth
The Moon's orbit (its circular path around the Earth) is indeed getting larger, at a rate of about 3.8 centimeters per year. (The Moon's orbit has a radius of 384,000 km.) The reason for the increase is that the Moon raises tides on the Earth. Because the side of the Earth that faces the Moon is closer, it feels a stronger pull of gravity than the center of the Earth. Similarly, the part of the Earth facing away from the Moon feels less gravity than the center of the Earth. This effect stretches the Earth a bit, making it a little bit oblong.

It is expected that in 15 billion years, the orbit will stabilize at 1.6 times its present size, and the Earth day will be 55 days long equal to the time it will take the Moon to orbit
Venus made rare trek across Sun
Venus (top left) seen by Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory moving on to the face of the Sun
Planet Venus has put on a show for skywatchers by moving across the face of...