What the scientists are saying…

Ibuprofen linked to cardiac arrest Taking ibuprofen significantly increases the risk of a person experiencing cardiac arrest, researchers have found – a finding that has led to fresh calls for restrictions on the sale of the painkiller. Several previous studies have found a link between nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), such as ibuprofen, and irregular heart rhythm; researchers have also found a link between NSAIDS and an elevated heart attack risk. Now, a team has studied the records of almost 29,000 patients who suffered an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Denmark, between 2001 and 2010, and found that taking ibuprofen was associated with a 31% increased risk of cardiac arrest: using diclofenac, an NSAID available on prescription in the UK, raised the risk by 50%. Although the study does not prove a causative link, its leader, Gunnar Gislason of the University of Copenhagen, said it was “a stark reminder that NSAIDS are not harmless”. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood around the body. It isn’t the same as a heart attack, but a heart attack can cause it.

Violent video games exonerated Playing violent video games does not make people more violent, or reduce their capacity for empathy – not in the long term, at least, according to a new study. Researchers in Germany recruited 15 male gamers who had all played first-person shooter games such as Call of Duty for at least two hours a day (and, on average, for four hours) for the previous four years. In a two-part experiment, the gamers were first asked to complete psychological questionnaires, to evaluate their levels of aggression and empathy. Then they were shown a series of emotionally provocative images while their brains were wired up to MRI scanners. As each image appeared, the gamers were asked to imagine how they’d feel in the situation depicted, and their neural responses in specific brain areas were measured. When the results from both parts were compared with those from a control group of non-gamers, no significant difference was found. Earlier studies have found a link between playing video games and a lack of empathy; the researchers say this may be because those gamers were tested immediately after playing, when they may still have been “pumped up”. The gamers in the new study hadn’t played for at least three hours when the tests were initiated.

Nettles thriving in polluted Britain Nitrogen emissions aren’t only harmful to human health – scientists have warned that they are having a “devastating” impact on the UK’S flora, driving out flowering species, while allowing “thugs” such as nettles and hogweed to run rampant. Emissions from transport, agriculture and industry are deposited directly from the air, or in rain, creating high levels of acidity in the soil. According to the charity Plantlife, 90% of heathlands and other sensitive habitats in England and Wales were suffering from excessive levels of nitrogen in 2014; for the UK as a whole, it was 63%. Some plants thrive in these nitrogen-rich conditions, but they are robust species such as nettles; whereas more than twothirds of wildflowers prefer medium or low levels of nitrogen. “Thuggish species that thrive in soil steeped in excess nitrogen are drowning out more vulnerable wild plants,” said Plantlife’s Dr Trevor Dines.

Spiders eat more prey than we do Spiders eat up to 800 million tons of prey a year, making them among the world’s most voracious predators, reports the New Scientist. And though they mostly eat insects and insect-like hexapods called springtails, some feast on frogs, lizards and small mammals too. A team of European researchers used data on spider populations per square metre in various areas to calculate that the world’s spiders have a collective weight of 25 million tons, and that together, they consume between 400 million and 800 million tons of prey a year. (By comparison, the world’s human population gets through about 400 million tons of meat and fish.) “Spiders thus make an essential contribution to maintaining the ecological balance of nature,” said Dr Martin Nyffeler, of the University of Basel. Most of the killing goes on in forests and grasslands; spiders have a lower impact in agricultural areas, because they do not thrive on intensively farmed land. Spiders are also prey themselves, as a key part of the diet of up to 5,000 species of bird.