More than a week ago, the first teaser trailer for Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker was released and many people have been speculating based on the scenes that were shown in the trailer what will happen in the final episode of the sequel trilogy.

The Nerdist took particular notice of the frame showing the Death Star as Rey, Finn, and Poe stare at it from a distance. They believe that it might be the key for Kylo Ren's redemption. Take it however you will, it's just a theory. How they are going to wrap up the space saga, we will know once the film is released in December.

(Image credit: Lucasfilm)

People have been asking whether Notre Dame's spire in Paris should be rebuilt with modern designs. Of course, it has been a symbol of architecture, culture, and ingenuity that has stood the test of time. But making a new modern spire might increase its durability and safety.

On the other hand, artist Kendra Wells shares a few of her thoughts (and jokes) of what possible new designs for Notre Dame's spire could be when it undergoes restoration. Check out her comic strip on The Nib.

(Image credit: Kendra Wells/The Nib)

What exactly is art? Let’s not dig into the academic definition of art because there is always an easier way to spot it ... well, anything inside the museum on display is supposed to be a piece of art, right?

As long as the piece on display is not a part of someone’s prank or experiment:

In a social experiment, Jack Sim, the founder of the World Toilet Organization, spotted an empty exhibit display in the National Gallery Singapore last week and decided to place a pen on the ground to gauge the reactions of museum visitors. Soon enough, a tiny audience gathered around the writing object, snapping photos of the item and wondering how it constituted art. 

Catch the public reaction over at Coconuts.

(Image Credits: Jack Sim)

Northern Texans are so innovative in making sure that their cars are protected from wreckage while facing a devastating hail storm.

Take a look at the creative (and some plain crazy) ways they use materials available at a moment's notice - from cardboard boxes, sleeping bags to children’s colorful floaties - to wrap their cars ahead of the coming storm.

See NBCDFW.com for more amazing pictures - via Davelog.

(Image Credits: NBCDFW.com)

Last April 11, the Falcon Heavy made its way to the cosmos and left NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launch pad 39A. The rocket is derived from from three Falcon 9 first stage rockets, with nine Merlin engines each. Also, it is designed to be reusable. Its core landed off shore of Of Course I Still Love You, an autonomous drone ship.

(Image Credit: SpaceX / nasa.gov)

George Berzsenyi is not a popular figure. I’m quite sure you have not heard of him. I haven’t heard of him either. But his success is not found in fame. His success is found in the thousands of lives he has touched. He has mentored a lot of high school students in the subject of math, and they loved him for it. He is, for the students, the main reason for their love of math.

Read the testimonies of these once protégés now turned the best scientists and mathematicians of America, as Joe Palca interviews them.

Teachers really are influential people.

(Image Credit: Sara Stathas for NPR)

Kids would often ask us or talk about death. As much as possible, we’d like to avoid that kind of conversation with them. It’s too much. It’s for adults. It’s considered taboo. So how do you make a child learn about death in a fun way?

“Taboos create fears and uncertainties,” the Vienna Psychotherapy Association said. “The child feels that something is wrong, and then he is left alone with that.”

So to teach kids about death, the museum partnered with a company to produce some gloriously morbid Legos.

Here are some of the gloomy (but cute) photos of the set.

(Image Credit: Cult of Weird)

European Organization for Nuclear Research known as CERN developed the first 60-metre-long power transmission line made with magnesium diboride (MgB2) superconductor. It can transport electricity at a much higher current densities than ordinary cables without any loss. The line operates in Helium gas (He) up to 25 K (-248 degree Celsius) as the cooling system so reach its superconducting state.

Like a metal python, the huge pipe snaking through a CERN high-tech hall is actually a new electrical transmission line. This superconducting line is the first of its kind and allows vast quantities of electrical current to be transported within a pipe of a relatively small diameter. Similar pipes could well be used in towns in the future.

Catch the video on Phys.org.

(Image Credit: CERN)

More than 200 attendees filled Beaux Arts Ballroom on Nob Hill, San Francisco, for an eight-and-a-half-hour data-crunching challenge. 

After grouping into pairs and trios, entrants were given data from an anonymous auto parts maker and asked to predict bad batches in factory output. 

Google researchers, Quoc Le, Ming Chen and Yieng Lu,were pretty confident to lead the competition using the testing artificial intelligence software called AutoML.

Did they win?

The answer on Wired.

(Image Credit: Ian Catindig)

Known for his bizarre architectural creations, such as a car being upside-down — but does not fall — on what seems to be a peeled part of the road, Alex Chinneck releases yet another of this weird things. Now, he unzips a building made of bricks. This creation is entitled A sprinkle of night and a spoonful of light.

Produced in partnership with IQOS, the new seventeen meter wide piece unzips the side of the facade, leading to an illusion of the whole structure is coming apart. Chinneck also has two other related pieces that can be viewed at Via Tortona 31.

Here are some of the images of this strange, eye-catching, but amazing artwork.

(Image Credit: Mark Wilmot)

Blooming peacefully on a vertical cliff face, the flower thought to be extinct was rediscovered by scientists when they flew a drone “into the Hawaiian skies to observe an extremely biodiverse area on a remote part of Kauais’s Kalalau Valley.

According to a statement from the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hibiscadelphus woodii was discovered on a vertical cliff face. Most sections of this area of the valley are inaccessible to humans because of the steep landscape.

...

Dr. David Lorence, director science and conservation for the garden, said, "This incredible rediscovery was made possible by our staff using drone technology and was supported by a grant from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. Drone technology greatly facilitates botanical surveys in rough terrain areas."

…

The plant grows in a shrub or small tree and produces bright yellow flowers, which turn purple or maroon as it ages. The species was named and published in 1995, raising the number of Hibiscadelphus at the time from six to seven species. An eighth species was discovered on Maui in 2012, and prior to the rediscovery, only two species still exist in the wild, the statement said.

In this day and age where a lot of animals and plants have gone extinct, it is a breath of fresh air to see this kind of news.

(Image Credit: CNN)

Philip Anderson, Ph.D. and Stephanie Crofts, Ph.D authored a paper dedicated to the study of nature’s vast range of sharp objects as they hope to understand why every major group of organisms has developed the ability to puncture flesh.

Viper fangs were the perfect place to start, says first author and lab leader Philip Anderson, Ph.D., because the “charismatic” animals are already so well studied. By understanding how evolution shaped sharpness we can make human tools better — and perhaps create materials that are puncture-proof, he explains to Inverse.

A viper fang, he says, “has one job to do, which is to puncture and inject venom.” Co-author and postdoctoral researcher Stephanie Crofts, Ph.D. puts it this way: “That’s more or less what evolution has shaped them to do.”

Visit Inverse to know more about this captivating article.

(Image Credit: Rushen! / Flickr)

Laurie Wolf found a screech owl sharing nest with a duckling in her backyard in Jupiter, Florida.

The scene looked awesome but somewhat concerned Wolf as the predator owl might hurt the duckling.

“The two of them were just sitting there side by side,” says Wolf, a wildlife artist and amateur photographer. “It’s not believable. It’s not believable to me to this day.”

According to Christian Artuso, of the Manitoba director of Bird Studies Canada, wood ducks have been living with eastern screech owls before but it is not commonly documented.

You see, wood ducks are known to practice brood parasitism. This means that parent ducks will sometimes lay an egg or two in someone else’s nest—usually another wood duck or another closely related species. 

 Click on to National Geographic for more adorable pictures.

(Image Credit: Laurie Wolf/Facebook)

Melbourne artist Kitt Bennett paints huge murals that can only be seen properly from above, because they cover a lot of ground -literally. His art often covers parking lots, roofs, and wide-open spaces where they can be seen from high-rise buildings.This has Bennett pouring gallons of paint on asphalt and spreading it with rollers after he works out the outline -which cannot be easy. A figure that covers a couple of acres is not easy to visualize in the small space where you stand, but it looks good from ten stories up.

View this post on Instagram

Call the cops. Fruit fly in Tasmania

A post shared by KITT (@kitt_bennett) on Oct 7, 2018 at 12:24am PDT

Check out how it's done in this video.

View this post on Instagram

Video of a ground painting I did last year. Some limited prints available. Signed and drawn on. Click link in bio. Thanks @runedmc for video @qbankgallery + @houseofprint for printing

A post shared by KITT (@kitt_bennett) on Aug 26, 2018 at 3:29am PDT

All these photos show more when you click to the right. This is real street art! Yeah, Bennett does walls and buildings, too. See more of Bennett's art at his website and at Instagram.  -via Colossal

James Charles Bond died in 1995 and kept the secret of his past to grave.

His grandson, Stephen Phillips, found out that he was a member of the elite Special Operations Executive (SOE) after searching through WW2 documents years following his death.

Bond worked under Ian Fleming, who served as Naval Commander before the became a writer of James Bond novels.

Mr. Phillips believed that Fleming used his grandpa's name for his fictional agent and had the code carved on the headstone.

"Seeing the headstone standing proud recognising grandad's '007' status and proper birth name has been so important to our family."

Find out more on BBC News.

(Image Credit: Wales News Service)