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Grand Canyon 70 million years old, formed during era of dinosaurs, new study claims

To stand on the South Rim and gaze into the Grand Canyon is to behold an awesome immensity of time. The serpentine Colorado River has relentlessly incised a 280-mile-long chasm that in some places stretches 18 miles wide and more than a mile deep. Visitors to Grand Canyon National Park will encounter an exhibit titled the Trail of Time, and learn that scientists believe the canyon is about 6 million years old — relatively young by geological standards.

 

As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias

Drug Industry

For drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, the 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine represented a coup. The 2006 report described a trial that compared three diabetes drugs and concluded that Avandia, the company’s new drug, performed best.

 

Study: Unemployment may raise risk of heart attack

The chances after multiple job losses may be on par with the risks people face from smoking, hypertension and diabetes.

 

Great apes have midlife crises too, study finds

Chimpanzees

A study of 336 chimpanzees and 172 orangutans suggests that midlife crises might be driven by biological factors. At middle age, a great ape will neither cheat on a spouse nor buy a red sports car on impulse. But researchers have found that chimpanzees and orangutans experience midlife crises just as surely as do humans.

 

More women have driver's licenses than men in US

Women are passing men on the nation's roads. A study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute says more women have driver's licenses than men.

 

Flu, fever linked with autism in pregnancy study

Autism

Doctors trying to find some of the causes of autism put another piece into the puzzle on Monday: They found women who had flu while they were pregnant were twice as likely to have a child later diagnosed with autism.

 

Warmer still: Extreme climate predictions appear most accurate, study says

Climate Change

Climate scientists agree the Earth will be hotter by the end of the century, but their simulations don’t agree on how much. Now a new study suggests the gloomier predictions may be closer to the mark.

 

Multivitamins fail to prevent heart problems

Multivitamins

Dashing the hopes of those who hope to pop a pill to prevent heart disease, doctors announced Monday that daily multivitamins don't stave off cardiovascular problems, such as heart attacks, stroke or death.

 

Insight: Scant evidence of voter suppression, fraud in states with ID laws

Voter Suppression

Democratic claims that a large number of Americans could be prevented from voting because of photo identification laws are probably overstated based on evidence from Georgia and Indiana, the two states where the laws have been in place for multiple elections, Reuters found... Data and numerous interviews by Reuters reporters also suggest there is little evidence to bolster Republican assertions that ID laws are needed to combat rampant voter fraud.

Senh: Looks like a case of "much ado about nothing" from both parties.

 

Redheads may be at higher risk of melanoma even without sun

Skin Cancer

A study on mice suggests that pheomelanin pigment, which gives rise to red hair, is itself a potential trigger for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Doctors have long urged people with red hair, fair skin and freckles to avoid the sun and its damaging ultraviolet rays.

 

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