One in sixteen patients in hospital last year had an infection contracted as a result of their medical care that made them sicker rather than better.

Fulham manager Martin Jol today dismissed speculation linking Clint Dempsey with a move to Liverpool and remains hopeful the American will sign a new deal at Craven Cottage.

Dechra Pharmaceuticals, which makes medicines for pets and livestock, yesterday spent €135m (£112m) buying a smaller Dutch rival that makes drugs for cattle, horses, dogs, pigs, cats and chickens.

Spare a thought for the trainee surgeons. For decades, the removal of a patient's appendix has been the standard operation with which novices begin their careers in general surgery. Common, straightforward, and comfortingly low-risk, the appendectomy had everything going for it.

One of the most common operations performed in Britain – on which generations of trainee surgeons have honed their skills – is outmoded, research suggests. Surgery for appendicitis should be abandoned and replaced with a course of antibiotics, experts say.

Chaleo Yoovidhya was the Thai billionaire who created a global brand with the Red Bull energy drink, which has given millions of party-goers, students and shift workers a caffeinated jolt. It spawned an industry of caffeine-laced pick-me-ups, which in 2011 was reportedly worth over $42 billion .

The world is entering an era where injuries as common as a child's scratched knee could kill, where patients entering hospital gamble with their lives, and where routine operations such as a hip replacement become too dangerous to carry out, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned.

Antibiotic crisis will make routine operations impossible and a scratched knee could be fatal

Britain is facing a "massive" rise in antibiotic-resistant blood poisoning caused by the bacterium E.coli – bringing closer the spectre of diseases that are impossible to treat.

That drug-resistant blood-poisoning cases in Britain have risen by 30 per cent in less than five years is concerning enough. That the official analysis judges the soaring cases of untreatable E.coli to be just the "tip of the iceberg" of antibiotic resistance should be a spur to more concerted efforts to address the problem.

Florence Nightingale may have had a point when she insisted 150 years ago that open windows were the hallmark of a healthy hospital ward, according to a microbiologist who believes air conditioning and an ultra-sterile environment may actually contribute to infections.

Alarming rise in bacteria resistant to antibiotics, Government report finds