Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance genius. Not only did he paint masterpieces of art, but he was an obsessive scientist and inventor, dreaming up complex machines centuries ahead of his time, including parachutes, armored tanks, hang gliders, and robots. On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, with the help of biographer Walter Isaacson, NOVA investigates the secrets of Leonardo’s success.

An engineer used powerful lights, cameras, and computer software to digitally remove the varnish from the "Mona Lisa," allowing people today to see the painting as Leonardo da Vinci created it.

To master Mona Lisa's form, da Vinci carefully studied the human eye and mouth—and he dissected at least 30 human bodies.

This camera system, developed by NASA engineers, images damaged Dead Sea Scroll fragments in 12 different wavelengths of light—bringing the writing back to life.

Some Dead Sea scroll replicas appear surprisingly authentic. But a thorough examination by scholars reveal some of their features aren't quite right.

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, these fragile parchment relics have intrigued scholars, religious leaders, and profiteers alike. The 2,000-year-old scrolls include the oldest-known versions of the Hebrew Bible and hold vital clues about the birth of Christianity. While certain scrolls have survived intact, others have been ravaged by time—burnt, decayed, or torn to pieces.

Paleontologists analyze concretions—hard orbs of minerals that can collect around material like bone—and discover fossils of mammals that lived on Earth just after an asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

At Corral Bluffs, Colorado, paleontologist Tyler Lyson discovers rare mammal fossils that paint a picture of the first million years after an asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs in a fiery global catastrophe. But we know little about how their successors, the mammals, recovered and took over the world. Now, hidden inside ordinary-looking rocks, an astonishing trove of fossils reveals a dramatic new picture of how rat-sized creatures ballooned in size and began to evolve into the vast array of species.

Vertebrate fossils can help scientists better understand evolutionary timelines. But plant fossils give paleontologists and paleobotanists a more complete story.

Hidden inside ordinary-looking rocks, an astonishing trove of fossils paints a dramatic picture of how rat-sized creatures ballooned in size and began to evolve into the vast array of species—from cheetahs to bats to whales to humans—that rule our planet today.

To test self-driving cars without putting lives at risk, most companies do a lot of their training in environments they can fully control. But ultimately, the only way to know how a car will perform on public roads is to test it in the real world.

After years of anticipation, autonomous vehicles are now being tested on public roads around the world. As ambitious innovators race to develop what they see as the next high-tech pot of gold, some experts warn there are still daunting challenges ahead, including how to train artificial intelligence to be better than humans at making life-and-death decisions. How do self-driving cars work?

In August of 2018, an 800-foot section of Genoa, Italy's Ponte Morandi Bridge collapsed, killing 43 people. Two survivors reflect on the event.

In 2018, Italy’s Morandi Bridge collapsed, tragically killing 43 people. For 50 years, the iconic bridge had withstood the elements—and stress from ever-increasing traffic. What went wrong that fateful day? And how can new engineering technology protect bridge infrastructure to prevent such tragic failures in the future?

In a single-point bridge failure, one component breaks and brings down an entire structure. See how this happened 52 years ago to West Virginia’s Silver Bridge.

To match human drivers, an automated vehicle needs to learn how to handle three distinct tasks: seeing everything around the car, understand what it’s seeing, and planning the car’s path.

In the far reaches of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune dazzle with unexpected rings, supersonic winds, and dozens of moons. And NASA’s New Horizons gets a stunning up-close view of Pluto before venturing deep into the Kuiper Belt.

Despite Neptune's distance from the Sun, the Voyager mission discovers that Neptune is warmer than its neighbor, Uranus. And, it has the strongest winds of any planet in the Solar System.

Pluto has a thin atmosphere with a blue tint. Find out what else makes Pluto interesting.