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Bricklayers in Teralba, New South Wales, Australia, capped a wall with perfectly-laid bricks, using a domino fall. I understand the first fall, although I couldn't understand why they did it. Then the second fall comes back around, and whoa! How did they do that? On Twitter, @neconocc gave us a graphic that helps to make it clear.

@joebloggs8040 I made a physics simulation. It works but the condition is very severe. Is there any hidden gimmick? pic.twitter.com/qJ7IktrYX3

— ふぁい (@neconocc) December 25, 2016

It's pretty darn cool to watch, but I don't see any advantage over laying bricks the old-fashioned way. Still, if the purpose was to make a viral video, they did well. -via Metafilter

Rogue One has proven to be just what Star Wars fans needed at the end of this crummy year, and the final version of the film that made it to the big screen seems to have satisfied even the pickiest fans.

Believe it or not 40% of the original film was reshot, which means the original version of the film presented in the trailers may have been quite different than the one released in theaters.

But one thing is for certain- at least 46 shots shown in the trailers were cut, so film editor Vashi Nedomansky created a video essay to show us all the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor. (may contain spoilers)

ROGUE ONE - 46 SHOTS NOT IN THE FINAL FILM from Vashi Nedomansky on Vimeo.

-Via Laughing Squid

Venus flytraps aren't generally thought of as plants worth stealing, and since they're seen as a novelty addition to a garden it doesn't seem like they'd be worth much money.

But the Venus Flytrap is an endangered species due to overcollection so there's real money to be made by poaching Flytraps, and therefore poaching has become a family tradition passed down for generations.

The Venus Flytrap is native to swampy areas in North and South Carolina, and the only place in the world where it grows wild is a 75 mile radius around Wilmington, where it has been protected by state legislation since 1956.

In fact, poaching has become such a big problem conservationists are afraid the Flytraps will be picked into extinction by poachers, who often sell the plants on the black market for about 25 cents each.

The poachers aren't above stealing this rare plant by the thousands from greenhouses and nurseries in the area too, and it's estimated there are only about 35,000 plants remaining in the wild.

Read Venus Flytraps Need Protection From Poachers In North Carolina here

The Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London made Big Ben, the Liberty Bell, and the Bells of St. Mary's. It has sent bells all over the world since the business opened in 1570. The foundry has been at the same Whitechapel location since 1783. But now owners Alan and Kathryn Hughes have announced that they will no longer take new orders, and the firm will close down next May.

It has been several centuries since the boom years of bell making, yet the foundry has found ways of adapting to modern times by making traditional doorbells, popular among people restoring Victorian properties.

The Downton effect has seen a third of its business exported overseas.

However, quality craftsmanship takes time. The average time from enquiry to order is 11 years, and the longest commission in the foundry’s history took 100 years to produce.

Order to installation takes another year, and a major project could cost as much as £250,000 to produce.

It's still possible that someone else will purchase the equipment and keep producing bells at another location. Read more about the oldest bell foundry in the world at the Telegraph. -Thanks, John Farrier!

(Image credit: ceridwen)

Redditor boomboomsaIoon found this light bulb in the attic of his workplace. It's an Aerolux neon bulb, the light rose model. Aerolux bulbs were manufactured from 1938 to 1974, and this one is estimated to be from the 1940s. Here what it would look like in a working lamp.

Commenter syco54645 has an Aerolux model with violets inside.

See a video of the bulb in action here. You can still buy new light bulbs with sculptured filaments, but they don't have that lovely vintage look.

Kevin Kohler, the Backyard Scientist, makes fire tornadoes with no fan or machinery. This is not only pretty cool, but pretty, too!

(YouTube link)

Once you see how it's done, then it all makes sense. And with different kinds of fuel, you can make flames of different colors. He even makes one tornado with two different colors! -via Tastefully Offensive

What do you call a parrot who has been sitting by the space heater too long? A polly hot pocket. Polly wants a cracker? More like polly wants to become crispy like a cracker!

Okay, so parrot jokes clearly aren't my strong suit.

Redditors thought it was pretty darn funny to see a parrot spreading its wings by a space heater in the photo uploaded by _korbendallas- so they Photoshopped him into a bunch of silly situations.

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The parrot found the whole Photoshop experience quite exhilarating, especially when he got to live out his dream of being a part of the Rebel Squadron.

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But then things took a horrible turn, and the parrot wished he was back home and stretched out in front of that space heater again instead of staring into the cold black eyes of the grumpy reaper.

(Image Link)

See Innocent Parrot By A Space Heater Gets Photoshopped Into Amusing Scenarios here

In National Geographic's column called "Weird Animal Question of the Week," someone asked if any microscopic animals have horns. At the microscopic level, it's hard to define horns, but they came up with some creatures that appear as if they have horns. That resulted in a weird gallery of creatures. Shown above is a virus, which is not classified as an "animal," and may not even fit the definition of a living organism, but you know what viruses are. This one is a bacteriophage, which means it's a virus that only infects bacteria. It's an electron microscope image, but it's still amazing that anyone can photograph a virus. This virus is described as looking like a lunar lander. Yes, it does. Other entries in the gallery are microscopic water fleas, rotifers, and dinoflagellates, each one weirder than the one before. -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: PhotoResearchers, Inc.)

Typhoid Fever was a pretty nasty disease in the days before antibiotics and vaccines. An outbreak of the disease among the wealthy in New York led to an investigation which found that several affected families had used the same cook: Mary Mallon. She made a great peach ice cream. But Mallon wasn't sick, and certainly didn't understand how she could possibly spread the disease. A symptomless carrier was a new concept for everyone at the time.

(YouTube link)

Michael Aranda of SciShow tells the story of Mary Mallon, who eventually became known as Typhoid Mary. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Neatoramanaut Sandyra has mentioned her Maine coon cat a few times, and I finally requested a picture. This is C.R.

I had a Maine Coon cat a long time ago. He was huge, bigger than a full grown Pekinese. His paws were enormous and his head was wider than a human's head. He weighed 30 pounds and was the sweetest cat I've ever had the privilege to serve. I still miss him and his motorboat purr...

And here C.R. is indulging in his hobby of eating cat food directly out of the canister. -Thanks, Sandyra!

Everyone else, feel free to post pictures of your favorite cat (or any other pet) in the comments.

Helen Keller was famous for her writing and advocacy, but she was not the first person to receive an education despite being both blind and deaf. The first was Laura Bridgman, who was born in 1829, over 50 years before Keller. Bridgman lost her sight and hearing at the age of two. When she was seven, she was brought to the attention of educator Samuel Gridley Howe, who founded the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts. Howe was determined to teach Bridgman to communicate with words.

Having accomplished that seemingly impossible task of learning words before letters, Bridgman eventually became proficient in language. But her education was uneven—despite being able to, say, point out a distant country on a globe, she was kept from learning about much of the world around her. Howe focused on abstract knowledge more than real-world experiences and used the glittering success of Bridgman’s education as a kind of proof of the validity of his educational theories. Howe, who was against rote learning and espoused liberal religious views, seems to have thought that Bridgman was a kind of specimen of pure humanity, unsullied by the vagaries of the world. Indeed, writes Freeberg, Howe wrote of her as “perfectly holy” and “as pure as Eve.”

But Bridgman had her own ideas about that. Once someone learns to communicate and read, it's impossible to control what they learn. Read about Laura Bridgman at Jstor Daily. -via Digg

Thanks to a certain presidential candidate claiming that the election is "rigged," voter confidence in the election process is at an all time low. But the reality is that election fraud is actually incredibly rare, which is why anyone doubting the system should check out this Daily Dot article debunking four of the most common election fraud myths. For example:

While Trump is correct that there are 1.8 million dead people are registered as voters, he leaves out one critical fact: None of them actually voted.

So no matter how you plan on voting tomorrow, remember that your vote does count -and imaginary voter fraud isn't going to change it.

What you see here is not Halloween vandalism. This toilet paper is used to repair roads in Littleton, Colorado. City repair crews fill cracks in the asphalt with tar, and then lay the toilet paper over top. The scheme will be used for 120 streets slated to have their cracks filled.

The TP, applied with a paint roller, absorbs the oil from freshly laid tar as it dries, keeping it from sticking to people’s shoes or car and bike tires. With the paper’s protective abilities, asphalt isn’t tracked all over the city or splattered on wheel wells. And the biodegradable paper breaks down and disappears in a matter of days.

“Since my car is new, I didn’t want it to get damaged,” Worthington said.

Kelli Narde, a spokeswoman for Littleton, said the real benefit of using toilet paper is that it allows traffic to retake the road right after a crack is filled.

“It means traffic has better access because we don’t have to close down a street to do the sealing,” she said.

There are industrial products sold for exactly this purpose, but single-ply toilet paper does just as well for a fraction of the cost. Double-ply will not work, because the top layer blows away into yards. It's an idea that may spread to a community near you. -via Arbroath

(Image credit: City of Littleton)

As if you needed another reason to dislike the Islamic State here's another- ISIS regularly enslaves people (mostly women) and uses them for everything from free labor to sex work.

This isn't exactly a dirty little secret, nor does ISIS really want the world to know they're actively taking slaves lest this ugly truth strain their allegiances.

But information is power, and former ISIS slave turned human rights activist Lamiya Aji Bashar wants to share her story of survival with the world so those who oppose the IS know what they're fighting for.

Lamiya is now starting her life over in Europe, and she has been jointly nominated for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought along with fellow Yazidi human rights activist and former IS slave Nadia Murad.

Nadia and Lamiya risked their lives to escap from ISIS, and they're still placing themselves at risk by sharing the plight of the Yazidi people with the world. But sometimes all it takes is one brave soul willing to speak out to give others the courage and motivation to take action. 

Read more from One woman's journey from ISIS slave to human rights activist here

Capital city relocation isn't as uncommon as you'd think, but when a country chooses to relocate the capital to what many have described as a "ghost town" it makes you wonder what's really going on.

In 2006 the government of Myanmar chose to officially change the country's capital city from Yangon to Naypyidaw, but apparently the people of Myanmar didn't get the memo.

Yangon is still the largest city in the country, with around 6 million citizens, while the government claims the population of Naypyidaw is just shy of a million. These photos taken in the capital seem to indicate otherwise.

No matter the time of day Naypyidaw's massive roadways and walkways are virtually devoid of human life, and yet the workers head out every day to do their job, making the whole Naypyidaw scene that much more surreal.

See Inside Myanmar's Haunting Capital City here and more photos of Naypyidaw here