Mysterious Planet ( maybe not even a planet)

An international team of astronomers has discovered, outside our solar system, a planet that has been found to be orbiting a single sun-like star from an impossibly far distance.

The exoplanet, dubbed HD 106906 b, weighs in at 11 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits its hosting star at 650 times the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. According to scientists, the exoplanet’s distance from its star makes it a unique celestial body, throwing a wrench into conventional planet formation theories.

“This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see,” Vanessa Bailey, a University of Arizona graduate student who led the research, said in a statement.

According to the existing consensus, planets close to their stars, like Earth, originate from small asteroid-like bodies born in the primordial disk of dust and gas that surrounds a forming star. But, the process happens so slowly that it cannot contribute to the formation of giant planets such as HD 106906 b, which is at an exceptionally great distance from its star.

Although there are possibilities that giant planets can form from a fast, direct collapse of disk material, primordial disks hardly ever contain enough mass in their outer reaches to allow such a planet to form. All these arguments have led astronomers to conclude that HD 106906 b should not have been where it was spotted.

The exoplanet and its hosting star are also of particular interest because researchers can still detect the remnant “debris disk” of material left over from the formation of the planet and its star.

“Systems like this one, where we have additional information about the environment in which the planet resides, have the potential to help us disentangle the various formation models,” Bailey said. “Future observations of the planet's orbital motion and the primary star's debris disk may help answer that question.”

According to astronomers, HD 106906 b is only 13 million years old and it continues to retain a glow from the residual heat of its formation. At 2,700 Fahrenheit, the exoplanet is much cooler than its host star, and it emits most of its energy as infrared light rather than visible light. Earth, on the other hand, formed 4.5 billion years ago, which makes it about 350 times older than HD 106906 b.

The scientists used the new Magellan Adaptive Optics, or MagAO, system and the Clio2 thermal infrared camera -- both developed at the Tucson-based university -- to discover the planet. The instruments were mounted on the 6.5 meter-diameter Magellan telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile to grab the discovery image.

"Every new directly detected planet pushes our understanding of how and where planets can form," Tiffany Meshkat, a graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and co-investigator of the research, said. "Discoveries like HD 106906 b provide us with a deeper understanding of the diversity of other planetary systems."

Hunting the aliens

NASA's ailing Kepler spacecraft could hunt alien planets once more 

NASA's hobbled Kepler space telescope may be able to detect alien planets again, thanks to some creative troubleshooting.

Kepler's original planet hunt ended in May when the second of its four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed, robbing the spacecraft of its ultraprecise pointing ability. But mission team members may have found a way to restore much of this lost capacity, suggesting that a proposed new mission called K2 could be doable for Kepler.

Engineers with the Kepler mission and Ball Aerospace, which built the telescope, have oriented the spacecraft such that it's nearly parallel to its path around the sun. In this position, the pressure exerted by sunlight is spread evenly across Kepler's surfaces, minimizing drift. 

This strategy is returning some promising results, mission officials say. During a 30-minute pointing test in late October, for example, Kepler captured an image of a distant star field that was within 5 percent of the image quality achieved during Kepler's original mission.

"This 'second light' image provides a successful first step in a process that may yet result in new observations and continued discoveries from the Kepler space telescope," Charlie Sobeck, Kepler deputy project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said in a statement.

The Kepler team is currently conducting tests to see if the spacecraft can maintain such pointing stability over periods of days and weeks — a necessity for discovering exoplanets.

Kepler launched in March 2009 on a mission to determine how frequently Earth-like planets occur around the Milky Way galaxy. The spacecraft finds exoplanets via the "transit method," noting the telltale brightness dips caused when an alien world crosses the face of, or transits, its host star from the instrument's perspective.

Kepler has been remarkably successful, spotting more than 3,500 planet candidates to date. Just 167 of them have been confirmed so far by follow-up observations, but mission scientists think 90 percent or so will end up being the real deal.

Researchers are still sifting through the mountains of data Kepler returned during its four years of science operations. Kepler team members have expressed confidence that they'll find Earth analogs in these databases, allowing the mission's primary goal to be achieved.

The proposed K2 mission would continue Kepler's exoplanet hunt, albeit in a modified fashion. K2 would also gather data about supernova explosions, star formation and solar-system bodies such as asteroids and comets, among other things, team members have said.

The Kepler team has officially presented the K2 mission concept to NASA Headquarters, which is expected to decide by the end of the year if the idea progresses to a vetting stage called "senior review." The ultimate fate of K2, and the Kepler spacecraft, will likely be known by the middle of next year, Kepler officials have said.

New Mystery In Space

Weird Black hole

An extremely bright black hole that is powering an energetic X-ray source in a neighboring galaxy has left astronomers baffled with its surprising capacity to consume matter, despite being unexpectedly lightweight, a new study reveals.

The black hole, which resides in the Pinwheel Galaxy about 22 million light years away from Earth, swallows the dust and gas around it in a “surprisingly orderly fashion.” And, with its incredible luminosity, this celestial phenomenon is expected to force a rethink of how some black holes radiate energy.

“It has elegant manners,” Stephen Justham of the National Astronomical Observatories of China said, in astatement. “We thought that when small black holes were pushed to these limits, they would not be able to maintain such refined ways of consuming matter. We expected them to display more complicated behavior when eating so quickly. Apparently we were wrong."

According to astronomers, larger black holes tend to produce softer X-rays while smaller black holes tend to produce relatively harder X-rays. The black hole system in question, called M101 ULX-1, is dominated by soft X-rays, so researchers had expected to find a large black hole as its energy source.

In addition, the black hole’s brightness is so incredible that astronomers had suspected that ULX-1 contained an intermediate-mass black hole weighing in between 100 and 1,000 times the sun's mass. However, new observations made at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, published in the Nov. 28 issue of Nature, indicate that M101 ULX-1’s black hole is on the smaller side, confusing astronomers.

Theories have been suggested which allow such low-mass black holes to eat this quickly and shine this brightly in X-rays. But those mechanisms leave signatures in the emitted X-ray spectrum, which this system does not display,” Jifeng Liu, of the National Astronomical Observatories of China, and the lead author of the study, said in the statement. “Somehow this black hole, with a mass only 20-30 times the mass of our Sun, is able to eat at a rate near to its theoretical maximum while remaining relatively placid. It’s amazing. Theory now needs to somehow explain what’s going on.”

The discovery also delivers a blow to astronomers hoping to find conclusive evidence for an “intermediate-mass” black hole in M101 ULX-1 as such black holes would have masses roughly between 100 and 1,000 times the mass of the Sun.

“Studying objects like M101 ULX-1 in distant galaxies gives us a vastly larger sampling of the diversity of objects in our universe,” Joel Bregman of the University of Michigan, a member of the research team, said. “It’s absolutely amazing that we have the technology to observe a star orbiting a black hole in another galaxy this far away.”

Top 10 scientists of all time

10
10

Marie Curie

1867 – 1934

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”

Polish physicist and chemist, Marie Curie was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the only person honored with Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, and the first female professor at the University of Paris. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. Her husband Pierre Curie was also a Nobel laureate, as were her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and son-in-law Frederic Joliot-Curie. Her achievements include the creation of a theory of radioactivity (a term coined by her), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two new elements, radium and polonium. It was also under her personal direction that the world’s first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms (“cancers”), using radioactive isotopes. While an actively loyal French citizen, she never lost her sense of Polish identity. She named the first new chemical element that she discovered (1898) “polonium” for her native country.

9

Alan Turing

1912 – 1954

“Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.”

English mathematician and logician, Turing is often considered to be the father of modern computer science. He provided an influential formalization of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. With the Turing test, meanwhile, he made a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is conscious and can think. He later worked at the National Physical Laboratory, creating one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE, although it was never actually built in its full form. In 1948, he moved to the University of Manchester to work on the Manchester Mark I, then emerging as one of the world’s earliest true computers. During the Second World War, Turing worked at Bletchley Park, the UK’s code breaking centre, and was for a time head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.

8

Niels Bohr

1885 – 1962

“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.”

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who made fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr’s work helped solve the problems classical physics could not explain about the nuclear model of the atom. He postulated that electrons moved in fixed orbits around the atom’s nucleus, and he explained how they emitted or absorbed energy. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in Copenhagen. He was also part of the team of physicists working on the Manhattan Project. One of his sons, Aage Niels Bohr, grew up to be an important physicist who, like his father, received the Nobel Prize, in 1975. Bohr has been described as one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century.

7

Max Planck

1858 – 1947

“We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.”

Max Planck, a German physicist, is considered to be the founder of quantum theory, and one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame rests primarily on his role as originator of the quantum theory. This theory revolutionized our understanding of atomic and subatomic processes, just as Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity revolutionized our understanding of space and time. Together they constitute the fundamental theories of 20th-century physics. His discoveries have led to industrial and military applications that affect every aspect of modern life.

6

Charles Darwin

1809 – 1882

“I love fools’ experiments. I am always making them.”

English naturalist and biologist, Darwin demonstrated that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930s, and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin’s scientific discovery remains the foundation of biology, as it provides a unifying logical explanation for the diversity of life. His 1859 book On the Origin of Species established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He also examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. In recognition of Darwin’s pre-eminence, he was one of only five 19th century UK non-royal personages to be honored by a state funeral.

5

Leonardo da Vinci

1452 – 1519

“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.”

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath. He was an expert mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the “Renaissance man”, a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

4

Galileo Galilei

1564 – 1642

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”

Galileo was an Italian physicist and astronomer. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the “father of modern observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of science”, and “the Father of Modern Science.” The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied by Galileo as the subject of kinematics. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, named the Galilean moons in his honor, and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, improving compass design. Galileo’s championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime. The geocentric view had been dominant since the time of Aristotle, and the controversy engendered by Galileo’s presentation of heliocentrism as proven fact resulted in the Catholic Church’s prohibiting its advocacy because it was not empirically proven at the time. Galileo was eventually forced to recant his heliocentrism and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Holy Inquisition.

3

Nikola Tesla

1856 – 1943

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”

Tesla was a Serbian engineer and inventor who is often described as the most important scientist and inventor of the modern age, a man who “shed light over the face of Earth”. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla’s patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution. Contemporary biographers of Tesla have regarded him as “The Father of Physics”, “The man who invented the twentieth century” and “the patron saint of modern electricity.” Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla has contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio. Many of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.

2

Albert Einstein

1879 – 1955

“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.”

Einstein, a German physicist, is best known for his theory of relativity and specifically mass–energy equivalence, expressed by the equation E = mc2. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Einstein’s many contributions to physics include his special theory of relativity, which reconciled mechanics with electromagnetism, and his general theory of relativity, which was intended to extend the principle of relativity to non-uniform motion and to provide a new theory of gravitation. His other contributions include advances in the fields of relativistic cosmology, capillary action, critical opalescence, classical problems of statistical mechanics and their application to quantum theory, an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules, atomic transition probabilities, the quantum theory of a monatomic gas, thermal properties of light with low radiation density (which laid the foundation for the photon theory), a theory of radiation including stimulated emission, the conception of a unified field theory, and the geometrization of physics. Einstein published over 300 scientific works and over 150 non-scientific works. The physics community reveres Einstein, and in 1999 Time magazine named him the “Person of the Century”. In wider culture the name “Einstein” has become synonymous with genius.

1

Isaac Newton

1643 – 1727

“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.”

Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian and one of the most influential men in human history. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, is considered to be the most influential book in the history of science. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution. In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he built the first “practical” reflecting telescope and developed a theory of color based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called “Newton’s method” for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series. Newton’s stature among scientists remains at the very top rank, as demonstrated by a 2005 survey of scientists in Britain’s Royal Society asking who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed much more influential than Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein Biography

Born in 1879, Ulm Germany, Albert Einstein was to become the most celebrated scientist of the twentieth Century. His theories were to lay the framework for new branches of physics. He also become well known as a humanitarian, speaking out against nuclear weapons - weapons he had indirectly contributed towards creating.

Einstein is one of the undisputed genius' of the twentieth century, but, his early academic reports suggested anything but a glittering career in academia. His early teachers found him dim and slow to learn. Part of the problem was that Albert expressed no interest in learning languages and learning by rote that was popular at the time.

School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. Einstein and the Poet (1983)

However, at the age of 12, he picked up a book on geometry and read it cover to cover. - He would later refer to it as his 'holy booklet'. He became fascinated by maths and taught himself -becoming acquainted with the great scientific discoveries of the age.

Around this time, his father's family business failed and so the family moved to Milan, Italy. Despite Albert's fascination with maths, he still languished at school. Eventually he was asked to leave by the school because his indifference was setting a bad example to other students.

On leaving school he decided to become a maths teacher to help support him in his studies of maths and physics.

He applied for admission to the Federal institute of Technology in Zurich. His first attempt was a failure because he failed exams in botany, zoology and languages. However, he passed the next year and in 1900 became a Swiss citizen. He married Mileva Marec, they had two sons before divorcing several years later.

Albert Einstein's Scientific Contributions

Quantum Theory.

Einstein suggested that light doesn't just travel as waves but as electric currents. This photoelectric effect could force metals to release tiny stream of particles known as 'quanta'. From this Quantum Theory, other inventors were able to develop devices such as television and movies. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921

Special Theory of Relativity

This theory was written in a simple style with no footnotes or academic references. The core of his theory of relativity is that

"Movement can only be detected and measured as relative movement; the change of position of one body in respect to another."

Thus there is no fixed absolute standard of comparison for judging the motion of the earth or plants. It was revolutionary because previously people had thought time and distance are absolutes. But, Einstein proved this not to be true.

He also said that if electrons travelled at close to the speed of light, there weight would increase

This lead to Einstein's famous equation

E= mc2

Where E = energy . m = mass and c = speed of light.

General Theory of Relativity 1916

Working from basis of special relativity. Einstein sought to express all physical laws using equations based on mathematical equations.

He devoted the last period of his life trying to formulate a final unified field theory which included a rational explanation for electromagnetism. However, he was to be frustrated in searching for this final break through theory. 

As a German Jew, Einstein was threatened by the rise of the Nazi party. In 1933, when the Nazi's seized power, they confiscated Einstein's property and Einstein (then in England) took an offer to go to Princeton university in the US. He later wrote, he never had strong opinions about race and nationality. He saw himself as a citizen of the world.

"I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains."

Once in the US, Einstein dedicated himself to a strict discipline of academic study. He would spend no time on maintaining his dress and image. He considered these things 'inessential' and meant less time for his study. Although a bit of a loner, and happy in his own company, he had a good sense of humour. “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”

Einstein professed belief in a God "Who reveals himself in the harmony of all being". But, he followed no established religion. His view of God, sought to establish a harmony between science and religion.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

How your body warns you before a heart attack??

10: Chest Pain and/or Pressure

The chest pain or pressure associated with a heart attack is called angina, and it's the most common symptom. Unfortunately for long-term survival, angina is usually much milder than people think, and this delays them from seeking attention. People may think it's nothing and just wait for it to pass. The result of this delay may be permanent heart damage that could have been avoided if the person had sought immediate medical attention.

Even if the pain is just mild or moderate, there are certain characteristics that may help you determine whether what you're feeling is a heart attack or just a bit of nervousness because you're starting a new job or going out on a first date.

• You experience severe, debilitating chest pain.
• You feel any level of pain or pressure in the center of your chest for more than a minute or two, and sitting down or resting doesn't make it go away instantly. It may also go away and then come back. This feeling in the chest may also be experienced as tightness, aching, a burning sensation, fullness or squeezing.

Even if sitting down or resting does make the pain or pressure subside, you should still seek medical attention as soon as possible, as this could indicate a pre-heart-attack state of oxygen deprivation or a mild heart attack.

9: Fatigue

Fatigue is a common heart attack symptom. It's also one of the trickiest considering that most people feel fatigued at least occasionally. The key to recognizing fatigue as a sign of a heart attack is when it occurs without explanation and in combination with other symptoms like chest or jaw pain.

Fatigue is not considered one of the classic heart attack symptoms. However, it turns out that symptoms like sleep disturbances, fatigue, shortness of breath, indigestion, and anxiety are far more commonly reported among women who have had heart attacks than is chest pain [source:Cleveland Clinic].

Fatigue associated with heart attack can come on suddenly or gradually over a period of days and can range from mild to severe. Fatigue can also be caused by depression, fibromyalgia, or a variety of other problems. The key to identifying fatigue as a heart attack symptom is to note by what else is going on at the time. If you experience fatigue along with a fever, it's unlikely to be an emergency. Fatigue accompanied by chest pain, sweatiness, or shortness of breath should have you dialing 911 without delay.

Unfortunately, fatigue is just one of several heart attack symptoms that are easily ignored. Another is indigestion, the next symptom on our list.

8: Indigestion

Did you know that feelings of indigestion are commonly associated with heart attack? If not, you're not alone. Indigestion is a lesser-known heart attack symptom. And like fatigue, it can be a confusing one. This is because indigestion is caused by a variety of different conditions, including ulcers, gastrointestinal reflux disease (GERD), cancer, or certain pancreatic conditions [source: NIDDK]. The good news is that there are ways of knowing whether feelings of indigestion are caused by a heart attack.

When indigestion is associated with a heart attack, it is usually also accompanied by other symptoms, including chest pain, shortness of breath, and pain or tightness in the arms, neck, upper back, or jaw. You may also feel nausea or sweatiness, neither of which are signs of indigestion. There are also other telltale signs of indigestion that are not linked with heart attack, such as a burning sensation in the back of the throat [source: NIDDK]. If you're having heartburn and not experiencing other typical heart attack symptoms, take an antacid. If that cures the problem, it's unlikely that your ticker is in trouble.

Indigestion may not be one of the classic signs of heart attack, but it's not uncommon, particularly among females [source: AHA].

Indigestion is a particularly dangerous heart attack symptom because it's so easily attributed to something else. Evidence suggests that people having a heart attack are more likely to delay calling for help if their symptoms were easily confused with indigestion [source: WebMD]. The next symptom in our list, jaw pain, is also potentially confusing, though difficult to ignore.

7: Jaw Pain

Most people don't associate jaw pain with cardiovascular trouble, but it's actually one of the telltale signs of heart attack, especially in the lower jaw [source: Mayo Clinic]. However, jaw pain is rarely the only symptom of a heart attack. More often, it is accompanied by sweatiness, fatigue, shortness of breath, and pain or discomfort in the neck, shoulders, and chest.

If you are experiencing jaw pain and you're not sure if it could be related to your heart, try this simple test: Move the jaw around a bit. If movement makes the problem worse, it's probably not a heart attack. Increased discomfort when moving the jaw is more likely to be associated with temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain or a dental problem [source: Health Central].

If you do experience jaw pain that does not change much with movement, and it is accompanied by symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, or sweating, don't take any chances. Call 911 ASAP. If your symptoms worsen, you could soon be incapable of calling for help. This is also true if you experience dizziness, which is the next symptom on our list.

6: Dizziness

If you're having a heart attack, every second counts. Unfortunately, people are often reluctant to call for help because they don't realize that they're having a heart attack. This is due in part to the misleading effect of the "Hollywood heart attack." In the movies, heart attacks are typically portrayed as someone becoming woozy and dropping to the floor clutching their chest, often quite dramatically. Real life is somewhat different.

While it's possible to have a "Hollywood heart attack," most people's experiences are not so Oscar-worthy. Often a heart attack begins with a feeling of dizziness. During a heart attack, blood flow to the brain is restricted [source: MedLinePlus]. This causes dizziness or lightheadedness, which may be accompanied by feelings of euphoria and/or disorientation. Along with indigestion and sweating, dizziness is one of the more commonly overlooked symptoms of a heart attack, particularly among women [source: ABC News].

Dizziness may or may not cause you to pass out [source: Women's Health]. If it doesn't, luck is on your side. Take advantage of your good fortune and call 911 immediately. And remember that time is of the essence – half of all cardiac deaths occur within one hour of symptom onset [source: CDC].

Don't worry that you're overreacting. It's always better to be safe than sorry. However, the next heart attack symptom we review also has several causes but it's far more likely to have people calling for help.

5: Sweatiness

One of the most common heart attack symptoms is sweatiness, often accompanied by clammy palms. The good news about sweating during a cardiac event is that it's one of the symptoms most likely to cause a heart attack sufferer to reach out for help [source: WebMD]. In fact, among the heart attack sufferers, sweating typically ranks higher than chest pain in terms of getting people to the hospital.

Researchers are not sure why sweating makes people reach out for help more than other symptoms of a heart attack. It may mean that sweating is more troubling to patients, or perhaps that sweating is a sign of a more serious heart attack. Whatever the reason, when accompanied by other symptoms of a heart attack, sweatiness is a clear sign that something is wrong. If you begin sweating excessively for no apparent reason, call 911 right away. This is especially important if you have sweatiness combined with other heart attack symptoms, such as upper body discomfort, which is the next symptom on our list.

4: Upper Body Discomfort

Movies and TV often show someone clutching his or her left arm during a heart attack. Pain in one, either or both arms is indeed a sign that you could be having a heart attack. You could also experience pain in one or both shoulders or back. And as with the chest pain, it may feel very mild -- like a tightness, pressure or general discomfort.

Of course, this type of pain could also indicate you're overdoing it in a tennis match. One way to tell that the pain in your shoulder or back is indicating a heart attack is if it's happening in conjunction with chest pain. If your left shoulder starts to ache and your chest hurts, too, by all means call 911 immediately.

It's important, by the way, that you call 911 first, not a family member or friend. Call a friend only after emergency personnel are on their way.

If your back, arm or shoulder hurts and you also have the next symptom on the list, you should get medical attention without thinking twice, no matter your age or state of health or whether your chest hurts.

3: Shortness of Breath

Difficulty breathing is a good reason to call 911, whether it indicates a heart attack or not. But it's good to understand that shortness of breath isn't just associated with lung activity; it could also be a sign that your heart is calling for help.

Experiencing "shortness of breath" can mean several things in terms of how it feels -- it could mean you find yourself struggling to breathe. It could mean you suddenly feel the need to take deep, long breaths -- and maybe (but not always) you have trouble doing so. It could also mean your breathing speeds up and/or your breaths are shallow.

As with the other symptoms on this list, it's especially important that you call for help without wasting time if you experience breathing irregularities and also have another symptom of heart attack, like pain in your back or arms.

That other symptom might also be a racing heart, which is next up on the list of heart attack warning signs.

2: Racing Heart

When your pulse speeds up, it's an obvious indicator that your heart is working overtime. Your pulse reflects your heart's pumping speed: Each beat of your heart pushes blood through your body, and you can feel the pressure of each push in places like your wrist or your neck.

When your pulse rate increases, it means your heart is pumping faster. It can also mean it's having trouble pumping and is working harder and faster to get enough blood to your body parts. This can mean you're having a heart attack.

The trouble is, an increased heart rate, even in combination with shortness of breath, could also indicate other things -- especially if you're exercising. A good way to tell if your heartbeat is speedy because you're running or because you're having a heart attack is to sit down and see if it slows down. If it doesn't, and you smoke or have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and especially if you also have pain in your left shoulder or arms, get to a phone and worry about sorting it out later.

To complicate matters further, a racing heart and shortness of breath can also be a sign of ananxiety attack, and a feeling of anxiety is also an indicator of a heart attack.

1: Intense Anxiety

Like most other symptoms on this list, it's seldom cut-and-dried when you feel causeless anxiety -- it's sometimes a sign your heart is in trouble. It can also mean you have an anxiety disorder (see How Fear Works) or there's something you're unconsciously very worried about. Or, the fear is entirely warranted because your heart muscle is in the process of dying, and you just don't realize it.

Awareness can help you make the call. Anxiety is a common symptom of lots of ailments, but ask yourself these questions:

• Does your anxiety seem entirely irrational?
• Is this the first time you're experiencing this type of anxiety?
• Does it feel like a sense of impending doom -- like something bad is about to happen, but you don't know what that is?
• Are you also feeling dizzy, nauseous, sweaty or clammy?
• Do you also have one or more of the other symptoms on this list?

If so, you should call 911. It could be a heart attack, and it's best not to wait it out to find out for sure. After all, even if it's an anxiety or panic attack and not a heart attack, you'll probably still need to get medical help, so you might as well get to the hospital.

While it's difficult to know if anxiety, a racing heart or an aching shoulder means your heart is dying, the worse news is that some heart attacks have no symptoms at all. There's something called a silent heart attack, and you'd never know you're having one until it's too late. One study in Massachusetts found that about 25 percent of heart attacks were only discovered later during routine exams, because they gave off no warning signs [source: Health Central]. The best way to prevent permanent damage, then, is to get regular heart screening if you know you're at risk (see How Heart Disease Works). That way, even if you do have a silent heart attack, you'll get help for it the next time you see your cardiologist, not when you keel over.

                                                 (Stay healthy, live healthy)

14 Strange Mental Disorders

1. Stockholm Syndrome - "Being kidnapped isn't that bad because the kidnappers are actually pretty darn sweet peeps."

It's a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors. Hostages who have Stockholm Syndrome often mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness and defend them after they are arrested.

The FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of kidnap victims show evidence of Stockholm Syndrome.
The syndrome is named after the robbery of Kreditbanken in Stockholm, in which bank employees were held hostages from August 23 to August 28, 1973. In this case, victims became emotionally attached to their captors, even defended them after they were freed from the bank.
There also is a syndrome called Lima Syndrome, in which abductors develop sympathy for their hostages. It's named after an abduction at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru in 1996, where most of the hostages were set free within a few hours, due to sympathy.

2. Capgras delusion theory - "Somebody who looks exactly like my wife is claiming that she is my wife. But I know that she is lying."

It's a strange disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse or close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.
The Capgras delusion is named after a Joseph Capgras, a French psychiatrist, who first described the disorder in 1929 in his paper co-authored by Reboul Lachaux on the case of a French woman who complained that corresponding "doubles" had taken the places of her husband and other people she knew.

3. The Fregoli Delusion or the delusion of doubles - "I don't believe that I have two friends, just one who sometimes likes to change his appearance to look like the other."

It's pretty much the opposite of the Capgras delusion. A rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise.
The condition is named after the Italian actor Leopoldo Fregoli who was renowned for his ability to make quick changes of appearance during his stage act.

4. Alice-in-Wonderland syndrome aka Todd's syndrome - "Oh wow, what a trip!"

It's a disorienting neurological condition that affects human perception. A temporary condition that is often associated with migraines, brain tumors and the use of psychoactive drugs.
A sufferer may feel that part of their body shape or size has been altered and perceive that other humans, animals and objects are smaller than in reality.

5. Celebriphilia - 

an intense desire to have a romantic relationship with a celebrity. Remember that just a little teenage crush on a celebrity doesn't make you a celebriphil. You can consider yourself a celebriphil If you are totally obsessed with the idea of having romantic relationship with a famouse person.

6. Alien hand syndrome aka Dr. Strangelove syndrome - when one of your hands starts to mind its own business.

It's a neurological disorder in which the afflicted person's hand appears to take on a mind of its own. Alien hand can perform complex acts such as undoing buttons and use tools on its own.
It may occur after brain surgery, strokes, infections and extreme case of epilepsy.

7. Hybristophilia - "OMG! That serial killer on death row is so darn fine!"

It's a paraphilia involving being sexually aroused or attracted to people who have committed an outrage or a gruesome crime. In pop culture, it's also known as Bonnie and Clyde syndrome.
For an example, Ian Huntley, the man charged with the Soham murders, gets bundles of fan mail every day.

8. Münchausen syndrome aka hospital addiction syndrome or hospital hopper syndrome.

It's a psychiatric factitious disorder wherein those affected feign disease, illness or psychological trauma to draw attention or sympathy to themselves.
The syndrome is named after Baron Münchhausen, a German nobleman, who purportedly told many fantastic and impossible stories about himself, which Rudolf Raspe later published as The Surprising Adventures of Baron Münchhausen.

9. Irregular repetitive speech syndrome aka foreign accent syndrome.

It's a very rare medical condition involving speech repetition that usually occurs as a side effect to severe brain injury. Those suffering from condition pronounce their native language with an accent that to listeners may be mistaken as foreign or dialectical.
There have been 60 recorded cases in between 1941 and 2009.

10. Koro aka genital retraction syndrome or shrinking penis.

It's a culture-specific syndrome from Southeast Asia in which the person has an overpowering belief that his penis or other genitalia is shrinking and will shortly disappear. For females, the belief focuses on nipples retracting or shrinking.
There have even been cases of koro occurring amongst many people at the same time. That is called penis panic.

11. The Cotard delusion aka Cotard's syndrome or walking corpse syndrome.

It is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which the sufferers hold a delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, are putrefying or have lost their blood or internal organs. Sometimes it can even include delusion of immortality.
The syndrome is named after a French neurologist, Jules Cotard who first described the condition in 1880. Cotard described a patient who denied the existence of God, the Devil, several parts of her body, and her need to eat. She believed that she was eternally damned and could not die a natural death. She later died of starvation.

12. Depersonalization disorder - when life is like watching a demo clip of a video game, instead of playing it yourself.

It is a dissociative disorder in which the sufferer is affected by persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalization and/or derealization. The sufferers feel like they are going through the motions of life but don't experience it and feel as if they are in a movie. They feel disconnected from their bodies and find relating oneself to reality and the environment very difficult.
Remember that occasional moments of depersonalization are totally normal.

 13. Reduplicative paramnesia - "They have moved me into another house, although they made it look just like mine, I know it's just a duplicate"

It is a rare delusional belief that a place or location has been duplicated, existing in two or more places in the same time, or has been relocated to another site.
It is associated with brain injuries.

14. Pica - "Oh wow, that rock looks delicious!"

It's an strange eating disorder where a sufferer will consume things that are not considered nutritive nor edible. They may consume rocks, hair, dirt, buttons and so on. Pica can lead to surgical emergencies and intoxication.
Pica can be from a cultural tradition, acquired taste or a neurological mechanism such as an iron deficiency, or chemical imbalance. Pica has also been linked to mental disability.
Pica is named after the Latin word for magpie, a bird, that is known to eat almost anything.