Patrick J. Kiger has written for HowStuffWorks since 2008 covering a wide array of topics, from history and politics to pop culture and technology. He worked as a newspaper reporter for the Pittsburgh Press, and the Orange County Register in California, where he covered one of the biggest serial murder cases in U.S. history, and also as a staff writer at Baltimore Magazine. As a freelancer, Patrick has written for print publications such as GQ, Mother Jones and the Los Angeles Times, and on the web for National Geographic Channel, Discovery News, Science Channel, Fast Company and AARP among others. In recent years, he's become increasingly interested in how technological advances are altering urban life and the design of cities, and has written extensively on that subject for Urban Land magazine. In his spare time, Patrick is a longtime martial arts student and a fan of crime fiction, punk rock and classic Hollywood films.
Recent Contributions
The Chinese space station Tiangong, now with its first crew of astronauts, is scheduled for completion in 2022. What does that mean for the future of the aging International Space Station and multinational space cooperation?
So much of our cosmological history starts with the much-discussed Big Bang, but what led up to that cataclysmic moment? And did time even exist back then?
What happens to all of that trash you put on the curb every week? It doesn't just disappear into a parallel universe. Much of it probably goes to the local landfill, and how it gets handled there is a very involved system.
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It doesn't exactly seem like something the human body would do, let a large portion of itself go to complete waste. Is it true that most of your brain is on permanent hiatus?
The number 137, which is significant in multiple applications, has long been an object of fascination for physicists, mathematicians and mystics.
The sun's atmosphere is actually hotter than its surface, even though you'd assume the surface is what generates all that heat. How does that work?
Without the system that pumps unused air from an aircraft's engines into the cabin, passengers and crew would be unable to breathe at 30,000 feet. But how does that system work?
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The Global Peace Index ranks 172 independent states and territories according to their levels of peacefulness. Those that came in last may — or may not — surprise you.
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a supermoon! Aside from being bigger and brighter than a regular moon, does a supermoon affect anything on Earth?
Sunspots are peculiar dark areas that show up regularly on the surface of the sun -- and often for no reason. What causes them? What effect could these funny little spots have on the Earth?
Sharks have a bad reputation, but is it warranted? Maybe for these 10, which are considered the most dangerous of all.
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U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmers routinely jump out of helicopters into dangerous waters, risking their lives to save others.
You may remember from math class that a prime number is a number that can only be divided by 1 and itself. But why are they important anyway?
Critics warn that cryptocurrency networks, whose computers use enormous amounts of electricity to verify transactions, could be a factor in warming the planet. The industry is working to change that.
Don't worry. We still love you, Earth, but we've been wondering about the possibility of life on other worlds for centuries, and now we have the tools to do some exploring. What have astronomers found so far?
By Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D., Patrick J. Kiger & Nicholas Gerbis
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Protons and neutrons, the particles that form the nuclei of atoms, are themselves made up of even smaller particles known as quarks.
Planck's constant, which made an appearance in the Netflix series "Stranger Things," is one of the most important differences between reality at the atomic and subatomic level and what we can see around us.
AI already can outperform humans in some narrow domains, but in the future AI may go inside the human brain to enhance intellectual capabilities, turning users into human-machine hybrids.
First developed in the 1920s, Geiger counters still use the same basic technology to detect radiation, but today can be the size of a smartphone.
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Spaghetti models plot the potential tracks of tropical storms and hurricanes from different meteorological organizations onto one map. The resulting visual helps project how likely the forecast track will be.
Hypersonic missiles, which could reach distant targets in a matter of minutes and wreak destruction with their own kinetic energy, are a potentially destabilizing threat to world peace.
The world has only had time zones since the late 1800s. Some people think we should eliminate them and have just one universal time instead.
While alcohol consumption is not completely alien to the space program, not much is known about its effects on the body outside our atmosphere.
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They keep our miles and miles of unruly cords untangled and out of the way. But how do they work?
Cleaning an airliner for the next flight is a complex undertaking that must be carried out rapidly. And it's even more important now during the coronavirus pandemic.