It works against human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer.
Boys could also be vaccinated in the hope of eventually eradicating HPV.
Cervical cancer kills 274,000 women worldwide every year, including 1,120 in the UK.
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But it is not yet clear whether the vaccine will be available on the NHS.
Doctors stress that the vast majority of HPV cases do not go on to cause cervical cancer.
Gardasil has already been approved for use in the US, Mexico, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
http://www.richimag.co.uk/rich%20life/ chiefs have launched a "full and urgent" investigation into the death of a 14-year-old girl after she was given a cervical cancer vaccine at school.
Post-mortem tests into the exact cause are understood to be held on Tuesday.
The batch of the vaccine used has been placed into quarantine as a "precautionary measure".
The local NHS also confirmed the vaccination programme would continue, but after a "short pause".
"We are conducting an urgent and full investigation into the events surrounding this tragedy."
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The teenager died at the city's University Hospital on Monday lunchtime.
"A number of other girls also reported being unwell and some were sent home," she said.
It is thought about a million girls have already safely received the jab.
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The department said Cervarix had a strong safety record.
There are more than 100 types of HPV but only 13 of them are known to cause cancer.
Vaccination is not compulsory and consent is required before it is administered to the under-16s
What are biofuels?
Biofuels are any kind of fuel made from living things, or from the waste they produce.
This is a very long and diverse list, including:
In recent years, the term "biofuel" has come to mean the last category - ethanol and diesel, made from crops including corn, sugarcane and rapeseed.
 Rudolph Diesel: biofuel pioneer |
Pioneers such as Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel designed cars and engines to run on biofuels. Before World War II, the UK and Germany both sold biofuels mixed with petrol or diesel made from crude oil; the availability of cheap oil later ensured market dominance.
Ethanol for fuel is made through fermentation, the same process which produces it in wine and beer. Biodiesel is made through a variety of chemical processes.
There is interest in trying biobutanol, another alcohol, in aviation fuel.
Are biofuels climate-friendly?
In principle, biofuels are a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional transport fuels.
| WHAT IS A QUICK GUIDE? Quick guides are concise explanations of topics or issues in the news. |
However, energy is used in farming and processing the crops, and this can make biofuels as polluting as petroleum-based fuels, depending on what is grown and how it is treated.
A recent UK government publication declared that biofuels reduced emissions "by 50-60% compared to fossil fuels".
Where are biofuels used?
Production of ethanol doubled globally between 2000 and 2005, with biodiesel output quadrupling.
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Sixty percent of new cars can run on a fuel mix which includes 85% ethanol.
The European Union has a target for 2010 that 5.75% of transport fuels should come from biological sources, but the target is unlikely to be met.
The British government's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation requires 5% of the fuel sold at the pump by 2010 to be biofuel.
In the US, the Renewable Fuels Standard aims to double the use of biofuels in transport by 2012.
What are the downsides?
From the environmental point of the view, the big issue is biodiversity.
With much of the western world's farmland already consisting of identikit fields of monocultured crops, the fear is that a major adoption of biofuels will reduce habitat for animals and wild plants still further.
Asian countries may be tempted to replace rainforest with more palm oil plantations, critics say.
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The mixed picture regarding the climate benefit of biofuels leads some observers to say that the priority should be reducing energy use; initiatives on biofuels detract attention from this, they say, and are more of a financial help to politically important farming lobbies than a serious attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
There are few problems technically; engines can generally cope with the new fuels.
But current technologies limit production, because only certain parts of specific plants can be used.
The big hope is the so-called second-generation of biofuels, which will process the cellulose found in many plants. This should lead to far more efficient production using a much greater range of plants and plant waste.
But according to a pair of studies published in the journal Science recently, biofuels may not fulfill that promise — and in fact, may be worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they're meant to supplement. According to researchers at Princeton University and the Nature Conservancy, almost all the biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, if the full environmental cost of producing them is factored in. As virgin land is converted for growing biofuels, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere; at the same time, biofuel crops themselves are much less effective at absorbing carbon than the natural forests or grasslands they may be replacing. "When land is converted from natural ecosystems it releases carbon," says Joseph Fargione, a lead author of one of the papers and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. "Any climate change policy that doesn't take this fact into account doesn't work."
Many environmentalists have been making the case against biofuels for some time, arguing that biofuel production takes valuable agricultural land away from food, driving up the price of staple crops like corn. But the Science papers make a more sweeping argument. In their paper, Fargione's team calculated the "carbon debt" created by raising biofuel crops — the amount of carbon released in the process of converting natural landscapes into cropland. They found that corn ethanol produced in the U.S. had a carbon debt of 93 years, meaning it would take nearly a century for ethanol, which does produce fewer greenhouse gases when burned than fossil fuels, to make up for the carbon released in that initial landscape conversion. Palm tree biodiesel in Indonesia and Malaysia — one of the most controversial biofuels currently in use, because of its connection to tropical deforestation in those countries — has a carbon debt of 86 years. Soybean biodiesel in the Amazonian rainforest has a debt of 320 years. "People don't realize there is three times as much carbon in plants and soil than there is in the air," says Fargione. "Cut down forests, burn them, churn the soil, and you release all the carbon that's been stored."
Official review admits biofuel role in food crisis
Britain and Europe will be forced to fundamentally rethink a central part of their environment strategy after a government report found that the rush to develop biofuels has played a "significant" role in the dramatic rise in global food prices, which has left 100 million more people without enough to eat.
The Gallagher report, due to be published next week, will trigger a review of British and EU targets for the use of plant-derived fuels in place of petrol and diesel, the Guardian has learned.
The study marks a dramatic reversal in the role of biofuels in the fight against global warming. As recently as last year, corn ethanol and biodiesel derived from vegetable oil were widely seen as important weapons in that fight - and a central plank of Gordon Brown's green strategy. Now even their environmental benefits are in question.
A panel of government experts, chaired by Professor Ed Gallagher, head of the Renewable Fuels Agency, has said that far more research is needed into the indirect impact of biofuels on land use and food production before the government sets targets for their use in transport.
The first such target is already in place. Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to contain 2.5% of biofuels, a stepping stone towards a 2010 target of 5%. The EU is contemplating a 10% target by 2020. The new report means all those goals will have to be reconsidered.
A government official familiar with the Gallagher review said: "Simply setting a target without stipulating what kind of biofuel is to be used in what circumstances can have all sorts of unintended consequences."
The report says there is a place for biofuels, both as an alternative to fossil fuels and as a source of income for poor farmers with marginal lands. But it says a distinction must be drawn between "first-generation" biofuels, which use food crops such as corn, rapeseed, palm and soya, and experimental "second-generation" fuels based on fibrous non-food plants which could theoretically be grown without displacing other crops and raising food prices. Criteria to guide fuel policy would consequently have to be drawn up.
It was unclear yesterday whether Britain had left it too late to influence EU biofuel targets, after the government failed to raise objections in a succession of votes in European environment and industry committees. British officials believe the issue can still be revisited in Brussels.
The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, ordered the review in February, at the height of the food price crisis, but the panel only began work in March and was asked to deliver its conclusions three months later. "There was so little time, I expected it would just be a review of the literature, but it has gone much further than I expected. It has substantive things to say," said a government official involved in drafting the report.
The role of biofuels, which pits concerns over climate change against the need for food security for vulnerable populations, was the most controversial issue at a summit on the food crisis earlier this month in Rome. The US and Brazil, both large-scale biofuel producers, argued fiercely against any hint of criticism of their cultivation in the conference's final statement, which called only for "in-depth studies".
An American claim that biofuels contributed less than 3% to food price rises was widely derided. The IMF estimates their impact as 20-30%, and other estimates are even higher. Over a third of US corn is used to produce ethanol, while about half of EU vegetable oils go towards the production of biodiesel.
After the Rome summit, a British government team involved in the Gallagher review visited the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to consult specialists who had drawn up UN recommendations on biofuel use. They emerged saying their views were "identical". The FAO recommendations advised against a moratorium on biofuel use or the continuation of "business as usual" under existing policies, calling instead for a set of international standards to ensure plant-derived ethanol and biodiesel did not harm the food supply. Keith Wiebe, a senior agricultural economist at the FAO, said: "There is a push towards the development of these liquid biofuels that is in advance of our understanding of their impact. We need to know more about those impacts, before pushing too hard."
The UN's World Food Programme has called the food crisis a "silent tsunami" which is pushing more than 100 million people worldwide into hunger.
· This article was amended on Monday June 23 2008. We should have said that the EU is contemplating a target of 10% for the proportion of biofuels to be contained in diesel and petrol by 2020, rather than 2010. This has been corrected.
Hvalur's catcher boats pulled in 125 fin whales this year
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|  This is our best year yet - we're very happy about that 
Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson
Icelandic minke whaler |
Johanna Sigurdardottir's government is to review whaling policy
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THE LEGALITIES OF WHALING
Objection - A country formally objects to the IWC moratorium, declaring itself exempt. Example: Norway
Scientific - A nation issues unilateral 'scientific permits'; any IWC member can do this. Example: Japan
Aboriginal - IWC grants permits to indigenous groups for subsistence food. Example: Alaskan Inupiat
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 Tackling hospital infections is a top government priority |
Between 2005 and 2006 the number of death certificates which mentioned the infection rose by 72% to 6,480, most of which were elderly people.
In over half of cases, it was listed as the underlying cause of death.
It is thought that some of the increase may be due to more complete reporting on death certificates.
Deaths involving C. difficile increased by 77% in men, and 66% in women between 2005 and 2006.
| Since 2006 we have taken significant steps to tackle infections Professor Brian Duerden, Department of Health |
Rates in both sexes have gone up dramatically since 2001, when there were only 1,200 mentions of the infection on death certificates.
The ONS figures also showed deaths involving MRSA remained roughly the same between 2005 and 2006 - at around 1,650.
C. difficile usually affects the elderly, and can prove fatal if antibiotic treatment fails to kill all the spores in the gut, and they take hold again before the patient's own gut bacteria have had chance to mount a resistance.
It is also very difficult to eradicate from the ward environment, which means it is easy for other patients to become infected.
Professor Brian Duerden, chief microbiologist at the Department of Health, said in July 2005 they called for more accurate reporting of infections such as MRSA and C. difficile on death certificates.
"These statistics from 2006 show that this move has worked and our figures are now in line with other developed countries.
"Since 2006 we have taken significant steps to tackle infections.
"These include stringent hand-washing guidance for the NHS, a bare below the elbows dress code, putting matrons back in charge of cleanliness on their wards and an ongoing deep clean of every ward."
And he added hospital infection rates were now falling.
The Health Protection Agency reported in November 2007 that rates of C. difficile infection may be levelling off with the number of new cases down 7% to 13,660, while MRSA cases are falling.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "These figures beg the question of why it took so long for the government to realise the seriousness of deadly infections such as C. difficile.
"Recent successes in keeping infection rates down are down to the hard work of NHS staff, who are up against enormous pressure to hit targets while keeping their wards infection-free."
Shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said: "Almost three times as many people are now killed by hospital infections as are killed on the roads each year.
"The overall scale of infection is unacceptable and the need for a comprehensive infection control strategy, including improved antibiotic prescribing and access to isolation facilities, hand hygiene and cleanliness is paramount."
He added: "An expert told the Department of Health last week that it was the government's failure to implement guidelines since as far back as 1994 that has contributed to the recent rise."
 Most deaths from C. difficile occur in the over 65s |
The rise in Clostridium difficile infections in recent years is due to genetic changes rather than dirty hospitals, say UK researchers.
Comparison of an historic strain and a strain from the outbreak at Stoke Mandeville hospital in 2003 found it had evolved to be more virulent.
It can spread more easily and cause more severe symptoms, the team reports in Genome Biology journal.
NHS trusts have a target to cut C. difficile infections by 30% by 2010/11.
The bacteria are present in the gut of as many as 3% of healthy adults and 66% of infants.
It rarely causes problems in healthy people but can lead to illness when the normal balance of bacteria in the gut is disrupted, for example with use of certain antibiotics, and it is the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhoea.
| The deep clean programme was never going to work against this organism in the long term Professor Brendan Wren |
In the past five years, a new group of highly virulent C. difficile strains has emerged - PCR-ribotype 027 - which cause more severe diarrhoea and a higher rate of deaths.
Analysis of the full genome of the "hyper-virulent" strains and an older strain showed the bacteria have acquired genes which enable them to survive better in the environment, spread more easily and make patients more severely ill.
In all, five different genetic regions appear to have accumulated in the bacteria in past couple of decades, the team reported in Genome Biology.
Fighting back
The number of cases of C. difficile has risen dramatically since the 1990s, although latest figures show cases are now consistently falling.
Stoke Mandeville Hospital saw two major outbreaks of C. difficile between 2003 and 2006 that caused 35 deaths.
Study leader Professor Brendan Wren, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the study would help scientists understand how C. difficile became so aggressive.
"These strains came from nowhere and the sudden rise in C. difficile was due to their spread.
"The bugs are fighting back and the one clear thing that comes out of this study is it is not down to cleaning but that the strain has evolved with new chunks of DNA.
"The deep clean programme was never going to work against this organism in the long term."
Hygiene measures are still needed to keep the infection under control, he added.
A spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency said it closely monitored the evolution of C. difficile strains.
"All strains of C. difficile require intervention and control - the intervention involved when dealing with the 027 strain is no different than how any other strain is treated.
"All C. difficile requires treatment and vigilant infection control procedures in order to reduce rates of infection."
BEETROOT has a hard time. It's unfashionable, it's boring, and no-one really likes it much. But all that's set to change with our amazing beetroot research. We've discovered that the humble beet has some amazing properties and may just change your life!
The belief persists to this day that if a man and a woman eat from the same beetroot, they will fall in love. (With each other, presumably.) That's something many of you can take advantage of, and we wish you every happiness. These beliefs may simply be from association with APHRODITE, but we have a better theory. The beetroot is roughly the same colour and shape as the organ of love, the heart. And that raises the humble beet from a boring vegetable to a Symbol.
| By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC |
Exceptionally well preserved dinosaur fossils uncovered in north-eastern China display the earliest known feathers.
The creatures are all more than 150 million years old.
The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the "oldest bird" recognised by science.
Professor Xu Xing and colleagues tell the journal Nature that this represents the final proof that dinosaurs were ancestral to birds.
The theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs has always been troubled by the absence of feathers more ancient than those on the famous Archaeopteryx.
| All over the skeleton, you see feathers Xu Xing |
This has given critics room to question the idea.
But the new fossils, which come from two separate locations, are in most cases about 10 million years older than the primitive Archaeopteryx discovered in the late 19th Century.
One of the new dinosaur specimens, named Anchiornis huxleyi, is spectacular in its preservation.
It has extensive plumage covering its arms and tail, and also its feet - a "four-winged" arrangement, says Professor Xu from the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.
'Immensely exciting'
"The first specimen we discovered earlier this year was incomplete," he told BBC News.
"Based on that specimen, we named it Anchiornis; and we thought it was a close relative of birds. But then we got a second specimen, which was very complete - beautifully preserved.
 The privative Archaeopteryx marks the transition between birds and dinos |
"All over the skeleton, you see feathers.
"Based on this second specimen, we realised that this was a much more important species, and definitely one of the most important species for our understanding of the origin of birds and of their flight."
Professor Xu believes the four-winged shape may have been a very important stage in the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds.
Details of the latest discoveries have been presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists, being held this year at the University of Bristol, UK.
The renowned Bristol palaeontologist Michael Benton said the announcement was immensely exciting.
"Drawing the tree of life, it's fairly obvious that feathers arose before Archaeopteryx appears in the fossil record," he told BBC News.
"Now these fantastic new discoveries by Professor Xu Xing prove that once and for all.
"These new discoveries are maybe 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx."
More patients in Scotland given antidepressants 13 October 2015 From the section Scotland Image copyright Thinkstock Image ca...
