Before we can boldly go where no one has gone before, we need a plan ... and blueprints! That's where illustrator Doug Pedersen come in. The Minneapolis, Minnesota, based artist has created a sci-fi inspired series of mashups of popular pop culture vehicles with real ones from NASA's space program.

Well, what do you expect from a company that dropped a man from orbit as a stunt? The 3rd Red Bull Illume Image Quest photography competition, where 6,417 photographers from 124 countries competed to submit the most epic action and adventure sports photos (there were more than 28,000 entries), has just announced the winners. And as expected, there was much epicness

Ever noticed that dogs sometimes look just like their owners? In 2009, Swiss photographer Sebastian Magnani had an brilliant idea of fashioning man's best friend just like its master. He took photographs of dogs and their owners, and with a bit of digital magic, came up with this gem of a series, Underdogs.

Quick, what comes to mind when you see these Rorschach tests made with food? Madrid-based photographer Esther Lobo (FahLoSue) created a series of fantastic Rorschach inkblot tests made with yogurt, ice cream, peanut butter, condiments, and other types of food

"A book can change the story of your life," is the premise of this series of cleverly illustrated ads for Penguin Books by Y&R ad agency in Beijing, China. The print ads show events in a person's life and how reading a book could make a difference between that person becoming a criminal or a sports hero, a successful chef and, uh, a degenerate and so on.

German photographer Jakob Wagner added a bit of sci-fi flair to nightscape photographs of the world's largest cities in his art series Urban Zoom.

Russian photographer Denis Budko captured these stunning images of what happened when melting snow on the Mutnovsky volcano in Kamchatka, Russia, revealed an otherworldly snow tunnel.

Italian artist Paolo Troilo needs no paintbrushes to create his artwork. Instead, he dips his fingers into jars of black and white paint to create the most amazing fingerpaintings you'll see today.

I can barely take a selfie, but 14-year-old photographer Zev Hoover (aka Fiddleoak) managed to build an amazing portfolio of whimsical photos featuring his family and himself as Lilliputians.

Since 2005, the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science has conducted an annual Underwater Photography Contest, which is open to amateur photographers. This year's contest was won by Kyle McBurnie of California with this hauntingly beautiful shot of a harbor seal floating like a ghost in a kelp forest. View more winners of the 2013 Underwater Photography Contest.

What do you get when you mash up fractal with Fabergé egg? This gorgeous fractal art from Tom Beddard of subblue, aptly titled Fabergé Fractals. Simply gorgeous!

By simply manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, Wim L. Noorduin [...] has found that he can control the growth behavior of these crystals to create precisely tailored structures. [...] To create the flower structures, Noorduin and his colleagues dissolve barium chloride (a salt) and sodium silicate (also known as waterglass) into a beaker of water. Carbon dioxide from air naturally dissolves in the water, setting off a reaction which precipitates barium carbonate crystals. As a byproduct, it also lowers the pH of the solution immediately surrounding the crystals, which then triggers a reaction with the dissolved waterglass. This second reaction adds a layer of silica to the growing structures, uses up the acid from the solution, and allows the formation of barium carbonate crystals to continue.

Man, that's a lot of frequent flyer miles! Canadian transportation planner Michael Markieta who works at engineering firm Arup in Toronto as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consultant, crunched the data of more than 58,000 global flight paths and visualized them in these fantastic images:

3D printing has never looked so good! With their background in architecture and penchant for complex geometries, Kyle and Liz von Hasseln of The Sugar Lab have come up with a way to 3D print sugar sculptures.

Marie-Antoine Carême, the world's first celebrity chef and founder of the concept of haute cuisine, continues to inspire us today, some 180 years after his death. The King of Chefs, and the Chef of Kings, as he's often called, and his eccentric culinary creations are the inspiration of an art exhibition in Brighton, United Kingdom, titled The Illustrated Recipe. The art show, hosted by Gallery 40 and Cameron Contemporary Art, features five British artists who are experts in six very different mediums of art: paint (Kirsty Wither), crochet (Kate Jenkins), collage (Ed Kluz), denim (Ian Berry), digital illustration (Sarah Arnett), and cake (Annabel de Vetten of Conjurer's Kitchen). Below are some sample of the exhibited artwork: