Humans dreams big—and, better yet, we make those dreams a reality. It's enabled us to tame nature, build new nations, defeat disease, defy gravity and even reach the Moon. And we're not done yet—not by a long shot. From the quantum internet to terraforming Mars, here are some of mankind's most ambitious future moonshots.

Visionary, polymath, scientist, artist, engineer—Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential "Renaissance Man." Whether it was flying machines, diving suits, automatons or advanced weaponry, da Vinci envisioned the future and set about designing it. Here's a look at Leonardo da Vinci's most futuristic contraptions.

There's a new aerospace technology on the horizon—using plasma, the superheated "fourth state of matter," to enhance the aerodynamic performance of aircraft. Here, we break down the mechanics and the uses of this exciting new technology that has the aeronautics and aerospace industries all abuzz.

On September 27, Elon Musk unveiled his most ambitious project yet—called the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), it's nothing less than his long-awaited plan for, not only putting humans on Mars, but colonizing the Red Planet as well. In this handy infographic, we've distilled the ITS architecture into seven easy steps.

In 1968, "father of computer graphics" Ivan E. Sutherland built the world's first head-mounted virtual reality display—complete with real time head tracking. Here's how he did it.

The face of warfare is rapidly changing. Numerous advances in recent decades have made possible military technology that was formerly the stuff of science fiction. Hypersonic missiles, next-gen choppers, carrier-based drones, electromagnetic railguns, and even laser weapons. This isn't Star Wars, folks—it's the future of the US military.

By 2050, the world's population will swell to 10 billion people, and nearly 2/3 of them will be living in cities. To feed everyone, we're going to have to drastically modify global farming practices. The solution? Vertical farming.

Long before Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, there was Eliza, Parry, and Jabberwacky. Chatbots turn 50 this year, and to celebrate, we've curated some of the most notable "artificial conversational entities" from the history of computing. Thanks for the memories, SmarterChild.

You can do a lot of weird stuff with cryogenics. You can (we hope) someday use it to preserve space voyagers on immense journeys. You can use it for power transmission. You can even chop someone's head off and cryopreserve it against the possibility of a future resurrection—which, when you think about it, really isn't weird at all.

All Hallows' Eve is upon us—a night when we abandon the rigidly scientific, and embrace the irrationally supernatural. We sophisticated products of modern civilization put off our thin veil of rationalism, and permit ourselves a shudder or two at the things "that go bump in the night." Doesn't mean we can't debunk that whole ridiculous zombie thing.

Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt identified a pressing world need, and—with characteristic self-sacrifice—he set out to fill it. The result is the Schmidt Sting Pain Index (SPI), a painfully-researched ranking of the world's most painful stings meted out by the notoriously sting-happy Hymenoptera. Hint: avoid bullet ants at all costs!

Technology leaders like Elon Musk have already sounded the alarm about the potential danger of AI. To prevent a robot takeover, experts are writing a brand new rulebook. Here are the laws Isaac Asimov, Google, and Microsoft developed to keep them on our side.