Battlefield robots are armed, intelligent, and poised to change the face of modern warfare. At least, that’s what the pundits have been repeating for the last decade.

Ever since humanity has been able to launch projectiles into space, a major priority has been to communicate with any alien life forms that might come across this space detritus and wonder who shot a space probe right into their upper atmosphere.

With that spark of manifest destiny helping to illuminate your path, there is no stopping you from pulling up stakes and heading out to any of the nearby worlds that are so seemingly destitute of life as we know it that they are practically begging to be colonized.

We’re not talking the fake 3D you saw in your ViewMaster toy, in comic books you read with red and green glasses, or at late-night horror movies. Leith and Upatnieks made holograms that projected light into space so you could look around it.

We all know that eventually, inevitably, humanity is going to develop an AI smart enough to turn into an awkward child actor with feelings all his own.

Let’s face it. We’re doomed. Our species’ greatest scientists have admitted as much—if we don’t find a way off this rock, the human race is facing extinction.

Considering that the human brain comes equipped with the desire as well as all the necessary neurological equipment to get us high, it’s not surprising that ever since humanity began, we’ve been searching out creative ways of doing so.

Social networking has become one of the most widespread phenomena of the last decade. It’s already revolutionized advertising, customer service, and the news. It’s not going anywhere.

Languages simply differ from one another, in ways both great and small. If you’re a linguist, it’s part of what attracts you to the field. And if you’re not…it can be confusing.

Of course, now we’re living in an era of face transplants, flu vaccines, and bionic lungs, and can develop a cure for bird flu practically in real time; so…we’re in the clear, right?