Touchscreen tablets and phones are popular in almost every respect but one - the smears that fingers leave on the screen.

Every owner of a gadget piloted via a touchscreen has spent time rubbing it with a tissue, a cloth or a sleeve gripped round the heel of the hand to banish those unsightly marks.
It's not that human fingers are filthy. Those smears come about thanks to a mix of physiology and good grooming habits, said Steve Block, an electronics industry scientist at Dow Corning, which makes coatings that get applied to touchable screens.
"There's a whole range of things that can contaminate those surfaces," he said. "There are natural oils on the fingers as well as the lotions people put their hands. Then there's cosmetics and the times when you hold your telephone up to your ear and it's sweaty."
Small wonder then that the sight of those smears is unsettling.
Thankfully, there is no reason to fret, as those smears are safe if your touchscreen gadget is kept just for you, said Prof  Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona.
"Touchscreens are a source of a wide range of microbes, but not much of an issue if you do not share it among other people - since, if you are the only one using it, it's only your germs," he told the BBC.
Sadly, that is not the case when those touchscreens are put to more promiscuous use, such as in a supermarket at the self-checkout, by patients in a doctor's waiting room or in a family that passes the gadget around.
Studies by Prof Gerba and colleagues have shown how important an infection vector touchscreens can be when used by lots of people.
"We have traced the spread of MRSA skin infection among teenagers that shared a cell phone," he said. "You will find MRSA on touchscreens on self-checkout screens in grocery stores in the US."
Touchscreens can be "reservoirs of opportunistic pathogens", said Prof Gerba in a small-scale study that uncovered MRSA, E. coli and C. difficile and many others on screens in hospitals and supermarkets.
It is worth keeping those surfaces clean, said Prof Gerba, even if the chances of getting ill are pretty low.
"For viruses it can take as little one to make you ill, but this varies a lot depending on the organisms. Some bacteria take 100,000 cells to cause illness, others a few hundred," he said. "It just depends if you come across the right organisms at the right time."
The study was carried out to test the best way of keeping those screens clean and killing off the bad bugs. The good news is that wipes impregnated with sodium hypochlorite (bleach), did a good job of disinfecting the screens. However, regularly wiping with bleach might not be a solution that domestic owners of very shiny, very expensive gadgets would favour.
Thankfully, other fixes are at hand.
To begin with, said Mr Block, screen makers are constantly refining the materials and coatings that make gadgets easy to wipe and keep clean. Those transparent coverings are glass, he said, but of a very particular type. Typically, he said, they and the coatings covering them are engineered to the most minute scale.
"They are made of very specialised molecules that are designed for these type of applications," said Mr Block. The silicone coatings that are now becoming standard are far more resistant to the secretions and substances that can end up on a touchscreen.
Also, said Mr Block, they are tougher and ensure a screen will stay responsive years after it is bought.
There are other innovations that might help too. Japanese materials company Toray has come up with a coating that, it claims, repels up to 50% more of the oil and other residues found on fingers. In addition, once applied, the coating dries into millions of tiny wrinkles that help hide smudges to help screens stay sharp.
The fourth generation of Gorilla Glass, which is used on many touchscreen gadgets, will include an antibacterial coating that can kill those pesky bugs by themselves. That coating is likely to start being used within the next couple of years.
Then there is the work of scientists at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who turned to a carnivorous plant to develop their screen coating. They found that the walls of the pitcher plant are slippery because they are covered with tiny bumps that trap water. Insects that can easily walk on walls struggle to make any progress on this surface because it repels the oils on their feet.
By mimicking this surface and applying an ultra-thin layer of lubricant, the researchers created a surface inimical to bodily substances. The work is still in the lab but is more evidence that those screens are only going to get harder to smear and easier to use.
"Any dirt is a barrier between user experience and a display," said Mr Block.


Welsh boxer Ashley Brace is hoping to be back in action in May after winning her first title on 22 April.

The 26-year-old stopped Alexandra Vlajk to win the WBC international bantamweight title in Ebbw Vale.
Brace could now fight on the Barry McGuigan bill in Cardiff on 26 May when Welshman Craig Kennedy and England's Matty Askin for the Commonwealth title.
"We're just waiting for confirmation but I think we're looking at the European title," she said.
"It's down to my managers really and trusting them to make the matches."
However, Brace says any fight with double Olympic champion Nicola Adams is some way off.
But she added: "I'd love to fight Nicola Adams. It would be an honour to share the ring with her."
Brace admitted she was troubled by nerves in the build-up to her meeting with Vlajk, but felt in control from early in the fight.
"I knew I had too much strength for her, I was beating her to the jab and in the fourth round I nearly stopped her," added Brace.
"But she was very crafty, you could tell she's had some really good fights and she's been in world title fights before. Fair play she was a tough girl and she lasted until the ninth."


A man who raided a post office on the outskirts of Edinburgh has been jailed for seven years.

Steven McIvor, 32, was one of two thieves who targeted the Letterbox Bistro in Balerno Main Street and stole Â£2,000 and 5,300 Euros on 26 February 2016.
McIvor, from Edinburgh, was found guilty after trial.
His co-accused Eddie Moffat, 27, was acquitted of the robbery charge on a not proven verdict.
The owner of the post office/bistro business Steven Carlyle, 55, said he was talking to his son when he became aware of two men entering the premises.
He told the court: "Then the language got worse and they demanded money. They were demanding all the money from the till and the Euros."
"The thieves had scarves over their mouths and each was armed with a knife.
Mr Carlyle said he pressed an alarm that was supposedly inaudible but turned out to be audible. He said: "That's when they started getting very agitated."
One of the intruders became very aggressive and a knife was thrust through a gap in a Perspex screen.
Mr Carlyle said: "They were swearing all the time, telling us to 'hurry up, get the money, get the cash'."
At the High Court in Glasgow Lord Kinclaven jailed McIvor and told him: "You assaulted Mr Carlyle, who was behind the counter. There was no physical injury, but it must have been a frightening and traumatic incident for those in the post office at the time."
The court was told McIvor, who has 17 pages of previous conviction, had a drug problem.
None of his previous convictions were for violence.
Det Insp Graham Grant, of Police Scotland, said: "Steven McIvor showed no regard for the welfare of the member of staff during this robbery.
"Thankfully a swift policing response involving uniformed officers, CID, road policing and specialist Police Scotland resources ensured that he was traced and detained quickly.
"Crimes of this nature will not be tolerated when they occur and we will use all resources at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice."


US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have said they will take new steps to address cybercrime.

Speaking at a joint news conference at the White House, Mr Obama said they had agreed that neither country would engage in cyber economic espionage.
The deal covers the theft of trade secrets but not national security information.
President Xi also pledged to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Obama said any escalation in China's alleged cybercrimes against the US would prompt sanctions.
"It has to stop," he said. "The question is now, are words followed by action?"
Reflecting on the use of sanctions against either individuals, businesses or state-run companies, he said: "We will apply those, and whatever other tools we have in our tool kit, to go after cybercriminals either retrospectively or prospectively."
Both countries deny taking part in the cybertheft of commercial secrets.
The Chinese president said the two countries would not "knowingly support" such practices and said they would both abide by "norms of behaviour" in cyberspace.
"Confrontation and friction are not the right choice for both sides," said Mr Xi, speaking through a translator.
The cybertheft of intellectual property designed to benefit Chinese industry was described by former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander as "the greatest transfer of wealth in history".
US officials have alleged that the Chinese state was behind a massive data security breach of government databases as well as attacks on private firms. That kind of breach is not covered by this deal.
Chinese President Xi Jinping wore a dark suit and stood at a podium during lunch at the US state department.
Behind him were his hosts, US Vice-President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State John Kerry. The room was filled with current and former officials, including Henry Kissinger.
The tables were decorated with red cloth napkins and yellow roses. Outside protesters shouted in front of the building: "Shame on the Chinese government".
Inside the room President Xi said he and President Obama had both "demonstrated a firm commitment" to a new model for their relationship.
He made a toast to friendship between the US and China. Most people stood up - but not everybody. People clapped, too, though not very enthusiastically.
Mr Obama thanked Mr Xi for introducing a cap-and-trade emissions trading system to limit greenhouse gas production.
The White House on Friday put out a fact sheet on the US and China's joint national carbon emissions trading scheme set to launch in 2017.
The "cap-and-trade" scheme would see Chinese companies charged to emit pollutants beyond a certain level.
China said it would commit $3.1bn to help developing countries reduce carbon emissions, along with other initiatives outlined in the fact sheet that would align China's climate work with that of the US.
There were also areas of sharp disagreement.
Mr Obama expressed concerns about the growing tensions in the South China Sea.
And he criticised China's human rights record, saying that preventing lawyers, journalists and others from operating freely is an obstacle to China living up to its potential.


Tolls on the Severn crossings will not be subject to VAT when they return to public ownership, the Department for Transport has confirmed.

Transport Minister Robert Goodwill said the private concession on the bridges is on course to finish in 2018.
But he said it would still take up to two years to pay off other debts worth around £88m.
Monmouth MP David Davies welcomed the news, in a letter from Mr Goodwill, but noted he had not said tolls would fall.
Current toll charges range from £6.40 for cars to £19.20 for lorries, 20% of which is made up of VAT.
In the letter to Mr Davies, who also chairs the Welsh Affairs Committee at Westminster, Mr Goodwill said:
"Once in public ownership VAT will no longer be payable on the tolls.
"Under the Severn Bridges Act 1992 it would be possible to reduce tolls to reflect the fact that VAT was no longer payable."
Mr Davies said the letter followed a meeting with the minister last month, also attended by other MPs on the committee.
"All of us would like to see action taken to reduce the tolls," he said.
"Unfortunately, the minister has not said whether the tolls would fall and that is the issue I would like to pin down the government on."
The MP said the committee has estimated ongoing maintenances costs for the bridges would be around a third of the current toll price and nobody had contradicted that.
"I therefore think we must now demand a clear plan for the post concession period with a significant reduction in the tolls," he said.
MPs are debating the future of the bridge tolls in a debate at Westminster Hall on Wednesday.
Last month there were cross-party calls for the charges to be cut drastically from 2018.
The Welsh government has called for control of the bridges to be devolved.


Parliament has been dissolved and all of its seats are now vacant.

The formal contest to fill them when the UK votes on 7 May is now under way.
In Northern Ireland's 18 constituencies the campaign looks certain to be to be dominated by deals.
Deals to support a minority government in a hung parliament; a deal between the two main unionist parties in four constituencies and the rescuing of a deal deadlocked at Stormont.
In a hung parliament, where no single party has enough seats to outvote all the others, smaller parties have a rare chance to decide who gets the key to 10 Downing Street or to influence government policy.
In 2010, a formal coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats mustered enough votes to form and run a government.
This time, the polls are predicting that it will take a coalition, or vote by vote agreement, by at least three parties to to secure a majority for whichever of the larger parties can make the right deals.
The Democratic Unionist Party, which held eight seats in the last parliament, has already been spelling out the price of its support.
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Party leader Peter Robinson has refused to put a number on it but cash for Northern Ireland is a priority.
He has said that the DUP will work with either the Conservatives or Labour to get the deal it wants but that the party is opposed to any arrangement that benefits parties, like the Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru, whose aim is to break up the United Kingdom.
The biggest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, which won five seats in 2010, refuses to take the seats it wins in Westminster elections, on principle.
The number of House of Commons seats is 650 so any Sinn Féin MPs will have to be deducted from that in calculating what constitutes a majority.
Northern Ireland's other main nationalist party, the SDLP, does take its seats.
In the last parliament, the SDLP had three MPs.
The party has yet to say what it would seek in return for the support of however many MPs it returns to Westminster but in 2010 it said it would use any influence it had in a hung parliament to benefit the people of Northern Ireland and to counterbalance unionist demands.
Of the two seats not held by those parties in the last parliament, one was held by the Alliance Party and the other by an independent.
The DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party have agreed a deal in which there would be only one candidate from their parties in each of four constituencies.
The Ulster Unionists agreed to step aside in North Belfast and East Belfast and the DUP said it would not run candidates in either Fermanagh and South Tyrone or Newry and Armagh.
Alliance described the unionist pact as anti-democratic and the SDLP described it as "a sectarian carve-up".
A Sinn Féin offer of a similar deal was rejected by the SDLP.
Sinn Féin said the proposed agreement would be about "progressive politics" but the SDLP said it "did not enter into sectarian pacts".
In December 2014, the five main parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly reached broad agreement on a number of contentious issues that threatened the stability and effectiveness of the Stormont Executive.
A key issue was welfare reform.
As part of the Stormont House Agreement, MLAs struck a deal to create a fund that would help benefit recipients who will lose money as a result of changes passed at Westminster but not yet implemented in Northern Ireland.
However, Sinn Féin suddenly withdrew its support for a welfare reform bill on 9 March, accusing the DUP of reneging on commitments. The DUP accused Sinn Féin of bad faith.
The row stalled the entire deal, putting several key plans at risk.
Talks have continued to salvage the deal but it may yet take the outcome of a highly unpredictable election to decide its fate.


An Israeli student whose grandparents survived the Holocaust has admitted stealing items from the Auschwitz death camp for her art project.

Rotem Bides visited the former Nazi German camp in Poland several times and removed items, including a sign forbidding people from taking anything.
She told an Israeli newspaper she had acted out of concern that the Holocaust would over time "turn into a myth".
The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum said the student's actions were "outrageous".
The museum also demanded the objects' return.
More than a million people, mostly Jews, were killed at Auschwitz during World War Two.
The objects from Auschwitz, which also include shards of glass, small bowls, a metal screw and soil, formed part of the 27-year-old's final project in Jerusalem, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.
Ms Bides told the newspaper she felt it was "something I had to do".
"Millions of people were murdered based on the moral laws of a certain country, under a certain regime," she told the newspaper.
"And if these are the laws, I can go there and act according to my own laws.
"I'm not saying I'm allowed to do it because my grandfather was in Auschwitz. I'm simply asking the questions. I'm concerned that after all the survivors are gone, the Holocaust will turn into a myth, something that cannot be perceived."
Ms Vides' supervisor at Beit Berl College, the Israeli artist Michal Na'aman, told the newspaper she "did not see anything wrong with it".
"The way I see it, she succeeds in creating a unique encounter between art and an event that has passed and has been wrapped in a lot of words, symbols and representations," Ms Na'aman said.
"It's hard to imagine theft being justified in any way, even through art, which can be seen as an attempt to gain publicity," the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum said in a statement.
Items have been stolen from Auschwitz in the past. In 2011, an Israeli local government official picked up several items that were lying on the ground next to a display cabinet - but they were discovered by officials at Krakow airport.
Moti Posloshani, the son of Holocaust survivors, later told Yedioth Ahronoth that he had wanted to "safeguard" the objects and perhaps hand them to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.
And in 2009 the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes you free" in German) sign over the entrance to Auschwitz was stolen by thieves - but recovered shortly afterwards.


A police community support officer has spoken of the domestic violence she suffered and kept hidden from colleagues.

5 December 2016 Last updated at 17:52 GMT
"Ivy" - not her real name - said she believed others within the West Midlands force knew of the beatings she endured at the hands of her ex-husband, but never broached the subject with her.
She chose to speak out as the force launched its campaign to highlight an annual Christmas spike in domestic abuse.


Eoin Morgan inspired England to their best one-day international run chase against Australia as they levelled the five-match series to set up a decider at Old Trafford on Sunday.

The England skipper hit a run-a-ball 92 at Headingley, with James Taylor and Ben Stokes both scoring 41.
David Willey had earlier reduced Australia to 30-3 with the new ball before they recovered to post 299-7.
Glenn Maxwell, who was dropped on 6 and 35, top-scored with 85 off 64 balls.
The Australia all-rounder also took two stunning catches but his efforts were not enough to prevent England overhauling a score of 300 or more for only the fourth time in their one-day international history.
Their previous best ODI run-chase against Australia was 270-4 at Lord's in 1997.
It was England's second successive victory, after they also won at Old Trafford on Tuesday, and means the hosts can still send Australia home defeated across all formats after they won the Ashes 3-2 and the solitary Twenty20 international by five runs.
Morgan anchored England's run-chase perfectly with his eighth score of 50 or more in his last nine innings.
Jason Roy and Taylor had shared a first-wicket partnership of 72 off 53 balls but England's progress stalled when both were dismissed in quick succession.
Morgan, however, slowly rebuilt the innings as he took 40 balls to score his first 20 runs before slowly accelerating.
He hit John Hastings for a straight six which landed on the roof of the adjacent rugby stadium as he thumped eight fours and two maximums before being caught at backward point by Maxwell's stunning one-handed catch.
Although Morgan appeared disappointed not to have finished the job, his brilliant innings took England to 238-5 with more than 10 overs remaining.
Some big hitting from Liam Plunkett and Willey, plus a steady hand from Moeen Ali, saw England home with 10 balls to spare.
Morgan is the highest scorer in the series but only just ahead of Taylor, who followed up his century at Old Trafford with a counter-attacking 41 off 42 balls.
He hit eight boundaries in his innings - compared to just five in his career-best 101 in Manchester earlier this week - and displayed a different side to his game before chasing a ball down the leg side and being acrobatically caught by Matthew Wade.
Taking on the fast bowlers, he was particularly strong through the off side as he cut and drove impressively to seize the early initiative back from Australia following the early loss of Alex Hales for a two-ball duck.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan believes Taylor has now done enough to justify selection on the tour of the UAE to play Pakistan next month.
"I think they've got to take him," said Vaughan. "Taylor plays spin differently to many England players, using his feet well.
"He hasn't faced brilliant spin in this series, but he's played it in a good fashion, and he's looked good against the quick bowlers. He's read situations well, and that's what he'd have to do at five in Test cricket."
Willey, who will play for Yorkshire next season after deciding to leave Northants this summer, was superb with the new ball in the absence of the injured Chris Woakes and the rested Steven Finn.
The left-armer started by swinging the white ball into the right-handers' pads - dismissing Joe Burns (played on) and Steve Smith (lbw) cheaply - before occasionally running it across the batsmen.
That created doubt in the minds of Australia's batsmen and Aaron Finch was the next to go when he edged behind to Jonny Bairstow.
Willey and Moeen were the pick of the England bowlers, with Australia failing to score a run off 50% of the latter's deliveries.
However, the hosts' familiar problems at the back end of an innings resurfaced, with Australia smashing 77 off the last six overs.
Both Willey and his fellow opening bowler Mark Wood bowled too full, allowing Wade and Hastings to get under the ball and plunder enough boundaries to take Australia from 215-7 in the 42nd over to 299-7 when their innings closed.
It was not just Willey who impressed at Headingley, with another honorary Yorkshireman dazzling the crowd with some fantastic cricket.
Maxwell, who is nicknamed The Big Show and has played for Yorkshire as an overseas player this summer, displayed some fantastic reverse-sweeps with the bat as well as also launching Adil Rashid for two huge sixes.
However, he saved his show-stopping best for the end of England's run chase when he produced an incredible boundary catch to end Plunkett's entertaining late cameo.
He caught the ball with both feet off the ground but, aware he was going to step over the rope, flicked the ball up with his right hand and then caught it in his left as he re-entered the playing area in front of the Western Terrace.
His athletic best could not deny England though, and it is Morgan's side who have the momentum heading back to Old Trafford on Sunday.


French President Francois Hollande has waived the remaining prison sentence of a woman who was sentenced to 10 years for murdering her abusive husband.

Jacqueline Sauvage's husband was a violent alcoholic who, she said, had raped and beaten her and her daughters for decades.
She also said he had abused their son, who killed himself.
More than 400,000 people signed a petition calling on Mr Hollande to intervene.
The sentence reduction means the 68-year-old will now be able to leave jail in mid-April, her lawyers said.
On 10 September 2010, the day after her son's suicide, Sauvage shot her husband three times in the back with a rifle.
She was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison in October 2014, which was upheld on appeal in December 2015 after the state rejected her plea of self-defence.
The case became a cause celebre in France, with campaigners calling for the definition of self-defence to be expanded to encompass victims of violence.
The move does not quash Sauvage's conviction but waives the remainder of her sentence.
"In the face of an exceptional human situation, the president wanted to make it possible for Sauvage to return to her family as soon as possible," the presidency said in a statement.
The decision came two days after Mr Hollande met Sauvage's three adult daughters.


US share markets have risen strongly shrugging off fears that a Donald Trump election victory could lead to a large Wall Street sell-off.

The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes all rallied robustly during the day and closed more than 1% higher.
The pre-open future markets forecasted dramatic sell-offs when Donald Trump's lead became clear overnight.
Share traders had expected Hillary Clinton to beat Mr Trump to become the next US president.
His victory initially sent money flowing into safe haven stocks, gold and currencies including the yen, but as the day has gone on global markets have recovered.
The Dow Jones ended the day up by 1.4% at 18,589.69. The S&P 500 was 1.11% higher at 2,163.26 and the Nasdaq was also up by 1.11% at 5,251.07.
In London the FTSE 100 index dropped 2% at the start of trading before recovering to end the day 1% up.
France's Cac index and Germany's Dax both closed about 1.5% higher after erasing losses of more than 2%.
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Some analysts had likened the shock of a Trump victory to the Brexit result earlier this year.
However, neither markets nor currencies have swung as wildly as they did after June's EU referendum.
The dollar has regained ground it lost earlier. Although it is still down against the pound, it is now up against both the euro and the yen.
US stock futures fell dramatically overnight when Mr Trump won key swing states, with traders at one point forecasting the Dow Jones to lose 4% or 800 points.
The sell-off hit Asian share markets, leading to them being described as a "sea of red" in early trading, before seeing their losses narrow.
Japan's Nikkei 225 finished 5.4% lower, but the Hang Seng in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite - which closed later - lost 2.2% and 0.6% respectively.
It's been a "risk off" day.
Buy into safe haven currencies like the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc (both up today); buy into gold (the ultimate save haven harbour); sell the obvious (the Mexican peso has taken a battering).
But, trading volumes are average, the FTSE 100 is calm and there has been no rush to the stock market exit doors.
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Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at City Index, said markets were calming down after the initial shock. "This suggests that a win for President Trump is not yet America's Brexit moment. US Treasuries have reversed earlier gains, and yields are rising."
She suggested Mr Trump's acceptance speech, in which he called for the country to unite, helped to settle some of the market jitters.
The biggest winners on the FTSE 100 were pharmaceutical firms, defence and mining companies, while banks and retailers were among the losers.
"What you're seeing is healthcare companies which had been threatened by some of Hillary Clinton's policies actually recovering quite strongly," Ben Ritchie, senior fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, told the BBC.
Arms makers stand to gain from Mr Trump's proposals to increase defence spending, analysts said.
Gold initially jumped 5% - the biggest one-day rise since after the UK's Brexit vote - before falling back to more modest gains.
Meanwhile, concerns about the impact of a Trump presidency on the Mexican economy saw its currency, the peso, fall more than 13% overnight against the dollar to its lowest level in two decades. It has since pulled that back slightly to an 8% loss.
Mexico is expected to suffer from a Trump presidency because of his pledges to build a wall along the US border with the country and renegotiate the two nations' trade agreement.


A second Danish zoo has said it may have to put down one of its giraffes, despite a storm of protest after a similar move by Copenhagen Zoo.

The Danish Jyllands Park Zoo said that it, like the zoo in Copenhagen, would be doing so to comply with breeding programme rules.
Coincidentally, its giraffe has the same name as the Copenhagen giraffe, Marius.
Copenhagen's Marius was destroyed on Sunday despite a online petition.
At least two wildlife parks, including one in Britain, had offered to house the healthy two-year-old animal but zoo officials said the danger of inbreeding remained.
The Danish Jyllands Park Zoo, in western Denmark, said its Marius is a seven-year-old hybrid, which means he is a mix of different sub-species.
He is currently housed with a younger, pure-bred giraffe called Elmer - who happens to be the half-brother of Copenhagen's Marius.
The zoo is expecting to receive a female giraffe to mate with Elmer at some point.
But Jyllands Park is not a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) and has not asked it to provide a female, a statement from EAZA said.
"EAZA cannot support any decision to cull the animal in question," the statement added.
"At the moment, there is no problem," said zoologist Jasper Moehring. "Marius is good company for Elmer and they are a wonderful attraction for our visitors.
"But the problem will be when we get a female. The two males will fight, which could result in the death of one of them," he told the BBC.
Mr Moehring said the zoo would get six months' notice before the arrival of the female and its priority would be to find a new home for Marius.
But he stressed that the move must not harm the carefully regulated genetic make-up of the giraffe population, otherwise Marius will have to be put down.
And he defended the decision by Copenhagen to put down its Marius on Sunday.
"I am sure the zookeepers at Copenhagen had a really bad day on Sunday because they love those animals, but they knew it was the best solution for the giraffes there," Mr Moehring said.
Copenhagen's scientific director, Bengt Holst, said Marius's genes were too similar to those of other animals in the European breeding programme, and he risked introducing rare and harmful genes to the giraffe population if he had been allowed to breed.
Mr Holst also defended as scientifically educational his decision to allow visitors - including children - to watch the carcass being skinned, cut up and fed to the lions.
His decision caused outrage among animal rights campaigners and has led to death threats against Mr Holst and his staff.
The news about Jyllands Park's Marius has prompted an offer of a new home from an unexpected quarter, the leader of the Chechen Republic.
Ramzan Kadyrov said in an Instagram post: "On humanitarian grounds I am ready to take Marius. We can guarantee him good conditions and care of his health."
He said he hoped his "proposal will find a positive response" from the zoo's management.


Championship side Brighton have agreed a deal to sign Norway defender Vegard Forren until the end of the season.

Forren, 29, arrives as cover for centre-back Shane Duffy who is set to miss the majority of the rest of the campaign with a broken metatarsal.
Capped 33 times by his country, he failed to make an appearance for Southampton after joining the club from Molde in Norway in January 2013.
He returned to Molde after Saints, who released him in January.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


Pitch Perfect 2 has made an impressive $70.3m (£44.7m) debut at the US box office, surging ahead of George Miller's Mad Max reboot,  Fury Road.

The comedy sequel earned more in its first weekend than the $65m that the first film pulled in over the course of its entire US run in cinemas.
Universal's Nick Carpou described the musical sequel's success as "amazing".
Directed by actress Elizabeth Banks, it marks the highest ever opening for a first-time feature film director.
"People loved the first movie and it resonated well beyond that $65m that the first film did," said Carpou, Universal's domestic distribution chief. "To be able to build on the first film and expand its popularity is pretty amazing."
The film sees Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson reprising their original roles, alongside newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, as the fictional a capella singing group The Barden Bellas.
The story sees the Bellas square off against German aca-champions Das Sound Machine in an international singing contest.
Tom Hardy's turn as the reinvented Mad Max - filling the shoes of Mel Gibson 30 years on - racked up $44.4m, having received positive reviews when it premiered at Cannes Film Festival last week.
"A lot of people coming to the movie went purely on the reviews," said Warner Bros' Dan Fellman, calling the film "an incredible ride this is that it's going to propel us right into the meat of the summer".
However the film remains a long way from profit. Pitch Perfect 2 cost a modest $29m to produce, while Mad Max: Fury Road carries a significant $150m price tag.


A two-minute silence has been held to mark Remembrance Sunday.

Services have taken place across the country to honour all those who have died in conflict.
The Queen led the commemorations at the Cenotaph in London. Prime Minister Theresa May and party leaders attended.
The Queen laid the first wreath, followed by other royals and politicians. After a remembrance service, veterans and current military personnel paraded down Whitehall.
More than 700 soldiers, sailors and members of the RAF lined Whitehall to hear a service led by the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres.
Detachments from units such as the Royal Marines, Household Cavalry and Royal Gurkha Rifles flanked the stone memorial.
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon attended the annual wreath laying and Remembrance Sunday service at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh.
She said it was "an opportunity for all of Scotland to join with others right across the world and commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice in conflicts during the last century and more recently".
BBC correspondent Daniela Relph at Whitehall
The crowds are 20-people deep in places on Whitehall.
Those with a front row position had to start queuing to get through security at first light. People were craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the march past.
Whitehall today is a place of shared remembrance.
There are those who've come to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday for the first time. And there are those for whom this is an annual event, something they would never miss.
They have come from all over Britain and beyond. Those I spoke to talked of feeling humbled during the 11 o'clock silence.
They also said that that being here, in person, was a really moving experience.
There are 8,000 people taking part in the march past. Watching it stirs contradictory feelings - it is both a solemn experience and somehow uplifting.
No-one here on Whitehall today will ever forget.
The Irish Prime Minister and Northern Ireland's First Minister attended a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Enniskillen, Fermanagh.
And there was a National Service of Remembrance for Wales at Cathays Park in Cardiff.
First Minister Carwyn Jones said: "It is important we take the opportunity to pay tribute to those who lost their lives, paying the ultimate price for our freedom.
"Those who fought bravely for our futures must never be forgotten."
Elsewhere, more than 40,000 knitted poppies have been placed on a Remembrance Day parade route in Thirsk, North Yorkshire.
The organisers said volunteers had sent in knitted and crocheted flowers from all over the world.
In Croydon, where seven people were killed and 50 injured after a tram derailed earlier this week, special prayers are being said for those affected.
Remembrance Sunday
The prime minister has said the day is not only about honouring the dead but also for paying tribute to those members of the armed forces currently on active service combating so-called Islamic State.
Mrs May said: "The way of life we enjoy today depends upon the service offered by members of the armed forces and their families.
"Across generations, and in every corner of the UK, today we remember those who gave so much for our values, our democracy, and our nation."
The Imperial War Museums are releasing letters, photographs and memoirs donated by families of soldiers killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the bloodiest clash in World War One.
The documents originally formed part of the museum's Bond of Sacrifice collection dating from its formation in 1917.
Contributions included a photograph of two brothers who it is said were within 50 metres of each other when one was wounded and the other rushed to his aid and was shot.
They died in each other's arms, and their mother received one telegram in the morning informing her of one son's death, and later the same day, another telegram telling her the other son had died.
The documents will now be part of the Lives of the First World War digital memorial.
At the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday evening, the Queen and other members of the Royal Family stood to applaud a procession of bereaved families.
It came after the audience heard the story of Cyrus Thatcher, who was killed in 2009 aged 19 while fighting as a rifleman in Afghanistan.
The Queen and the rest of the royal box joined the standing ovation as his parents, Helena Tym and Robin Thatcher, led a procession of bereaved families through the hall.
This year the event marked the centenaries of the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Jutland, the 25th anniversary of the Gulf War and the 80th anniversary of the first flight of the Supermarine Spitfire.
Thousands of poppies fluttered to the ground from the hall's domed roof as the room observed a two-minute silence.


A Tory MP has said her party risks betraying its values as she voiced her opposition to tax credit cuts.

Heidi Allen suggested ministers were losing sight of the difficulties of working people in their "single-minded determination to achieve a surplus".
Urging help for affected families, she said "true Conservatives had compassion running through their veins".
The government is standing by the changes, saying these and other reforms will save taxpayers £15bn a year.
From April, the threshold at which tax credits begin to be withdrawn will fall from £6,420 to £3,850, and people's credit entitlement over this amount will be reduced more steeply.
Millions of people are due to learn how much money they will lose in letters received shortly before Christmas.
The government says people's incomes will be protected by other measures, including the new National Living Wage, increased free childcare and a larger personal income tax allowance.
But a growing number of Tory MPs say they are not satisfied with this and want "transitional" arrangements to be put in place to help those affected.
In her maiden speech in the Commons during a Labour debate on tax credits, Ms Allen, the MP for South Cambridgeshire, said she supported the principle of reducing reliance on the state but feared the way the government was going about it was all wrong.
Tax credits debate: Finding your way
Ms Allen, who backed the changes when they were first voted on last month, said her party must not treat it as "a spreadsheet exercise" since many of those affected would not be able to cope and faced a stark choice between heating their homes and putting food on their tables.
"It is right that people are encouraged to strive for self-reliance and find work that pays for their independence from the state but I worry that our single-minded determination to reach a budget surplus is betraying who were are," she said.
"Today every Conservative member who knows who we really are has a duty to remind those who have forgotten. We are the party of the working person... who strives to provide for themselves and their family with pride."
The government, she said, had a responsibility "to support the people through that change", adding: "I am not interested in the colour of the party that created a bloated welfare state. That is in the past but I do know one thing - it is not the fault of the recipients of tax credits.
"To pull ourselves out of debt, we should not be forcing those working families into it."
Labour urged Tory MPs to back its motion calling for a rethink, but was defeated by 317 votes to 295, with no Conservatives voting against the government.
However, several MPs used the occasion to increase the pressure on the government to rethink how they are introduced.
Conservative Johnny Mercer urged the chancellor to do "something, anything" to ease the "harshest" effects of the cuts on vulnerable people.
"My duty, and indeed our duty is to shout for the most vulnerable," he said.
"Those who through no fault of their own find themselves on the fringes of society, those who through a bit of bad luck, a couple of wrong decisions can be any one of us."
Labour has accused the Conservatives of deceiving the public after ministers made repeated statements during the election campaign insisting that tax credits were not going to fall in value.
As pressure mounts on the government, cross-bench peer Baroness Meacher is tabling a so-called "fatal motion" for next Monday in an attempt to kill off the changes in the House of Lords, where the government does not have a majority.
The Lords cannot interfere in the government's Finance Bill but the tax credit cuts are contained in a separate piece of legislation and the Huffington Post reported that should they be blocked, it could prompt calls for peers' powers to be curbed and even for the Lords to be "suspended".
The BBC's John Pienaar said Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords will be formally instructed to vote down the government's plans, despite fears among senior peers that a veto could provoke a government backlash, and even constitutional retaliation against the unelected chamber.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said those on lower incomes will be more affected by the cutbacks than any welfare change since 2010 but its director Paul Johnson told Today that, even so, the tax credit system would remain "far more generous" than it was in 1997.


There is a chance the Aids epidemic can be brought under control by 2030, according to a report by the United Nations Aids agency.

It said the number of new HIV infections and deaths from Aids were both falling.
However, it called for far more international effort as the "current pace cannot end the epidemic".
And charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned most of those in need of HIV drugs still had no access to them.
The report showed that 35 million people around the world were living with HIV.
There were 2.1 million new cases in 2013 - 38% less than the 3.4 million figure in 2001.
Aids-related deaths have fallen by a fifth in the past three years, standing at 1.5 million a year. South Africa and Ethiopia have particularly improved.
Many factors contribute to the improving picture, including increased access to drugs. There has even been a doubling in the number of men opting for circumcision to reduce the risk of contracting HIV.
While some things are improving, the picture is far from rosy.
Fewer than four in 10 people with HIV are getting life-saving antiretroviral therapy.
And just 15 countries account for three-quarters of all new HIV infections.
The report said: "There have been more achievements in the past five years than in the preceding 23 years.
"There is evidence about what works and where the obstacles remain, more than ever before, there is hope that ending Aids is possible.
"However, a business-as-usual approach or simply sustaining the Aids response at its current pace cannot end the epidemic."
Michel Sidibe, the executive director of UNAids, added: "If we accelerate all HIV scale-up by 2020, we will be on track to end the epidemic by 2030, if not, we risk significantly increasing the time it would take - adding a decade, if not more."
Drugs have been a miracle in reducing deaths from Aids.
Normally it takes about 10 years for Aids - acquired immune deficiency syndrome - to develop.
"Opportunistic infections" that a healthy immune system could fight off then become deadly.
But patients taking antiretroviral drugs can keep their HIV infection under control and have a near-normal life expectancy.
The tools are there, but too often they are beyond the reach of people who need them.
Some 54% of people living with HIV do not know they are infected and 63% are not getting antiretroviral therapy.
Diagnosing and treating the missing millions - often in sub-Saharan Africa - would significantly reduce the 1.5 million Aids-related deaths each year.
BBC News: Is HIV still a death sentence in the West?
Dr Jennifer Cohn, the medical director for Medecins Sans Frontieres' access campaign, said: "Providing life-saving HIV treatment to nearly 12 million people in the developing world is a significant achievement, but more than half of people in need still do not have access."
In Nigeria, 80% of people do not have access to treatment.
Dr Cohn added: "We need to make sure no-one is left behind - and yet, in many of the countries where MSF works we're seeing low rates of treatment coverage, especially in areas of low HIV prevalence and areas of conflict.
"In some countries, people are being started on treatment too late to save their lives, and pregnant women aren't getting the early support they need."
Marcus Low from South African campaign group Treatment Action Campaign told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme:
"It is still a crisis in South Africa - we still have about 1,000 new infections every day.
"On the treatment side, we have done well and people are living longer.
"But we must do more to prevent new infections."


Niger says it will close illegal migrant camps in the north of the country after 92 people who died of thirst were found in the Sahara.

All those involved in trafficking migrants would be "severely punished", the government said.
The bodies of 52 children, 33 women and seven men were discovered after two trucks carrying them broke down on the way to Algeria.
Niger lies on a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
The government announced the plan to close illegal camps in northern Niger - which it referred to as "ghettos" - in a statement broadcast on television in Niger.
The migrants would be handed over to international aid agencies and the traffickers brought to justice, said the government statement.
"This tragedy is the result of criminal activities led by all types of trafficking networks," it said.
The statement said Prime Minister Brigi Rafini would visit the southern district of Kantche, where most of the dead are thought to have come from, to present to their families the "condolences of the nation wounded by this tragedy".
Niger is observing three days of mourning, with flags outside public buildings flying at half mast.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mohamed Bazoum told the BBC that about 5,000 African migrants were currently stranded in illegal camps in the northern town of Agadez alone.
Having paid large sums of money to traffickers, these migrants are waiting to cross hundreds of kilometres of desert into Libya or Algeria, says the BBC's West Africa correspondent, Thomas Fessy. Many seek a better life in Europe.
The head of the International Office for Migration in Niger, Abibatou Wane, welcomed the announcement by Niger's government, but warned that migrants could only be repatriated to their home countries on a voluntary basis.
The bodies of 87 people, thought to be migrants, were discovered in the Sahara desert in the north of Niger on Wednesday.
Another five from the same convoy had been found several days earlier by the army.
Some of the dead migrants were found only about five kilometres from a well.


Tommy Bowe and Dan Tuohy will play for Ulster 'A' in the opening round of the British and Irish Cup on Friday.

Their selection for the team to face Jersey Reds at Shawsbridge means they will not be involved in Ulster's European Champions Cup opener away to Begles-Bordeaux on Sunday.
Both players are battling back from long-term injuries.
Tuohy has not played for Ulster in 2016 while Bowe made his return in last Friday's Pro12 defeat away to Connacht.
The 32-year-old suffered a serious knee injury at the World Cup last year and barring one Pro12 game against Zebre in April, had not played this year until last week's defeat in Connacht.
Both Bowe and Tuohy will hope the extra game time for the 'A' side on Friday will enhance their prospects of being involved in next week's Champions Cup home game against Exeter Chiefs.
Tuohy is regaining match fitness after a bad foot injury and is keen to play against his old team.
"My runout for the 'A's last weekend was the first game I've played in 2016 so I'm hungry for minutes on the pitch," he said.
"I am keen to make up for lost time and finish the year well.
"It's massively important to play as much as I can, stay fit and show the coaches I am up to full speed."


Five-time champion Roger Federer needed five sets to overcome American teenager Frances Tiafoe in the first round of the US Open.

The 36-year-old Swiss won 4-6 6-2 6-1 1-6 6-4 in his first ever match under the Arthur Ashe Stadium roof.
Third seed Federer goes on to face Slovenia's Blaz Kavcic or Mikhail Youzhny of Russia on Thursday.
Only nine players completed their matches as rain wiped out much of Tuesday's schedule.
More to follow.
Live scores and results


Yale University is renaming a college that honours a former politician who was an advocate of slavery to recognise a female computer scientist instead.

Calhoun College will be renamed to honour Grace Murray Hopper, who helped transform the way people use technology.
Hopper earned Yale degrees in the 1930s and became a US Navy rear admiral.
Saturday's announcement, which follows years of debate, reverses a decision made last year.
The Ivy League university said the move ends the controversy over the former politician and defender of slavery John C Calhoun, whose legacy led to campus protests in 2015.
Four people were arrested in a peaceful protest as recently as Friday after they blocked a road near the residential college.
Yale University president, Peter Salovey, announced in April that the school would keep Calhoun's name. However he later appointed an advisory panel to determine whether the decision was correct.
On Saturday, Mr Salovey said that Calhoun College, which was given the name in the early 1930s, was an exceptional case because the former US vice-president's legacy was at odds with the university's values.
"We have a strong presumption against renaming buildings on this campus," Mr Salovey said, adding: "I have been concerned all along and remain concerned that we do not do things that erase history."
Calhoun, a member of the Yale class of 1804, was a senator from South Carolina and a leading voice for those opposed to abolishing slavery. He served as vice-president from 1825 to 1832.
The university said it will not remove symbols of Calhoun from its campus and will allow alumni to continue associating with the Calhoun name instead of Grace Hopper College.
However Mr Salovey said he hoped the university community would now "embrace Grace Hopper and get to know her better".
She graduated from Yale in 1930 and earned a doctorate in mathematics and mathematical physics from the university in 1934.
Hopper later enlisted in the Navy and "used her mathematical knowledge to fight fascism during World War Two," the university said.
Hopper then invented the first computer compiler, which helped computers understand simple commands.
She retired as a Navy rear admiral aged 79, and died in 1992 at the age of 85.


Chelsea Football Club will not be able play any games at Twickenham when their west London ground is being rebuilt, rugby's governing body has said.

The club will have to leave their Stamford Bridge home for up to three years during the construction of a new Â£500m 60,000-seat stadium.
Twickenham was an option being considered by the club but a spokesperson for the Rugby Football Union (RFU) said it would not happen.
Chelsea have declined to comment.
Wembley Stadium is thought to be another possible venue being considered by the club.
But Tottenham Hotspur have been given the option to temporarily relocate to the national stadium for the 2017-18 season.
Harrow East MP Bob Blackman has also raised concerns about the "potential abuse" of the "national treasure" if either club turns Wembley into their temporary home.
Chelsea could stay at Stamford Bridge while redevelopment work takes place but this is thought to be the most expensive option.
The club have been granted permission to demolish their current ground and replace it with one designed by architects Herzog and de Meuron.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan will still have the final say on whether the development goes ahead.


The killing of a US journalist by an Islamic State militant who could be from the UK is "an utter betrayal of everything the British people stand for", the foreign secretary has said.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Philip Hammond said the government was investing "significant resources" to tackle "a barbaric ideology".
He said the threat from conflicts in Syria and Iraq could last a generation.
It comes as Downing Street said it had appointed a new security envoy to Iraq.
A spokesman said the posting to the Kurdistan region of the country showed the government was "stepping up" its efforts to help Iraq defeat Islamic State (IS) militants operating in the area.
Work is under way to supply "non-lethal equipment" to Kurdish forces who are battling IS in the coming days, including night vision equipment and body armour, the spokesman added.
UK authorities are seeking to identify the jihadist with an English accent who appeared in footage of the killing of journalist James Foley earlier this month.
Extremist group IS published a video of the moments before and after the apparent beheading of Mr Foley, who was seized in Syria in 2012.
In his Sunday Times article, the foreign secretary said: "It is horrifying to think that the perpetrator of this heinous act could have been brought up in Britain.
"It is an utter betrayal of our country, our values and everything the British people stand for."
More than 500 British citizens are thought to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight in the past few years.
Mr Hammond said the UK had assisted Kurdish Peshmerga fighters with military aircraft delivering equipment.
He said Britain would also start sending eastern European ammunition and weaponry.
The government also announced Lt Gen Sir Simon Mayall, its senior defence advisor for the Middle East, as the new security envoy.
"Gen Mayall's extensive experience of the region means he will be able to draw on a broad range of existing relationships across Iraq, the region and with close allies," No 10 said.
The spokesman said Gen Mayall would travel to Iraq next week to meet political leaders in Baghdad and the regional government in Irbil, Kurdistan's capital, "to encourage all Iraqi communities to unite together" against IS.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, also writing in the Sunday Times, called for a stronger domestic response.
"More must be done to stop British citizens joining the barbarism and to keep the country safe if they return," she said.
And she called for more action "to disrupt the travel plans of those planning go out to fight through better monitoring of the borders' watch list as well as access to passports".
The Home Office said police, security services and the Border Force were working to identify, detect and disrupt terrorist threats, including from British fighters attempting to return to the UK.
As well as passport checks, passengers travelling into the UK were checked against "watch lists", a spokesman added.
"The UK uses the most advanced technology in Europe to ensure we collect passenger information on 95% of flights, which helps us to identify individuals who pose a threat before they fly."
Mrs Cooper also urged Home Secretary Theresa May to "rethink her decision four years ago to end control orders and replace them with the weaker Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act".
TPims are used to restrict movement, the use of computers and mobile phones and meetings with others. They replaced the previous, more-restrictive system of control orders.
On Saturday, Mrs May said the government was looking at new powers to tackle the threat of extremism in Britain.
Senior Conservative MP David Davis, meanwhile, said the TPims were "completely useless".
"What happens with them is that all the dangerous villains get away - they leave the country, go off back to Pakistan or now to Iraq," he told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend.
He added: "We should be using the law, we should be using prosecution, we should be locking people up if they are breaking the law - not doing these other halfway house measures and trying to go around the law."
And he called for British jihadists to be stripped of their UK citizenship.
"These people are now effectively swearing allegiance to a proto-state - a criminal proto-state.
"If they all come back they - 500-plus or 700 whatever it is - will undoubtedly create a very, very serious threat within the UK."
The government should give courts the right to say "they no longer have the protections and rights" of British citizenship, he added.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey made a similar point.
"They should not have access to the privilege of travelling under a British passport," he said, adding "and they certainly should not be able to travel back with the barbaric and bloodthirsty skills they have gained".
Who are Islamic State (IS)?


A murder investigation has been launched after the discovery of the body of a 24-year-old man.

The body was found inside a flat in St John's Close, Hyde Park, Leeds on Thursday afternoon.
The man who was last seen by friends in early November has not been formally identified, said West Yorkshire Police.
The force wants to hear from anyone who witnessed anything suspicious in the area or has any information.


A burglar who stole a Porsche and filmed himself boasting behind the wheel before crashing it into a wall has been jailed.

Jamie Lee Sharp, 25, took the keys during a house raid in Gloucester along with James Honeywell, 26.
In the video he is seen revving the engine and boasting to friends on the phone about "his new car".
At Gloucester Crown Court, Sharp, of Gloucester, was jailed for four years and disqualified from driving.
Honeywell was jailed for 35 months.
The pair had broken into a house in the Longlevens area of Gloucester on  11 January and along with the car keys, stole a television, a wallet and several other items, the court heard.
After leaving, Sharp filmed himself just before he crashed into a wall in nearby Barnwood Road.
In the aftermath, Honeywell ran off leaving Sharp trapped.
Sharp, previously of Deans Way, Gloucester, pleaded guilty to burglary, aggravated vehicle taking, driving whilst disqualified, drink-driving and driving without insurance.
He was jailed for four years and disqualified from driving for 29 months, in June.
Honeywell, of Elmleaze, Longlevens, Gloucester, was jailed on Monday for 35 months after admitting burglary and aggravated vehicle taking.
He had failed to attend court on 19 November for sentencing and a warrant for his arrest was issued.


Three policemen have been killed in a bomb explosion in Bahrain, the interior ministry has said.

A post on Twitter said the officers had been "dispersing rioters" in the village of Daih, west of the capital, Manama, at the time of the attack.
Witnesses reported hearing a blast during clashes between anti-government protesters and police who were firing tear gas and birdshot to disperse them.
Thirteen police officers have now been killed since protests erupted in 2011.
Last month, one was fatally injured by an explosion on the third anniversary of the start of the uprising that has seen people take to the streets to demand more democracy and an end to what they perceive as discrimination against the Shia community by the Sunni royal family.
By Bill LawBBC News
The attack is the deadliest against the security forces since the unrest began three years ago and underlines the dangerous stalemate in the kingdom.
The national dialogue talks remain stalled despite an initiative by the crown prince in January.
The main opposition group Wefaq has consistently called for non-violent protests, but the harsh reality is that it cannot contain angry youths who attack police with Molotov cocktails, projectiles, homemade weapons and, most disturbingly, improvised explosive devices like the one detonated in Daih.
And despite police and government claims that reform is under way, security measures continue to be heavy-handed. Unless a meaningful dialogue begins soon the violence looks set to worsen.
Following Monday's explosion, six leading opposition groups issued a joint statement saying they "regretted casualties, regardless of which side they belonged to".
"The sanctity of blood applies to every human being," it added.
The statement called on opposition supporters to "adhere to peaceful means, and condemn and disclaim criminal acts" and on security forces to "exercise restraint".
The interior ministry said the "terror blast" happened after "police dispersed a breakaway group of thugs who diverted from a funeral route in Daih to riot".
Earlier, people had gathered in the predominantly Shia village for a third day of funeral processions for a detainee who died in hospital last week.
The government and prosecutors said Jaffar Mohammed Jaffar died as a result of complications caused by sickle cell anaemia, which caused a clot to form in his lungs.
But the main Shia opposition group, Wefaq, alleged that he had been tortured in custody and denied adequate medical care.
His family said he had been subjected to beatings and electrocution since his arrest in December in connection with a seizure of weapons.
Opposition and human rights activists say that in addition to the 13 policemen, more than 80 civilians have been killed over the past three years. However, the government says the death toll is lower.


A driver who says he was "deliberately and repeatedly rammed" by a lorry has criticised police for failing to respond to his calls for three hours.

Matthew Stockdale claims he was repeatedly cut up and shunted three times by the other motorist.
He said he made six 999 calls and was connected to three police forces.
Northamptonshire Police, which took the first call, has apologised for the communication failures, saying it plans to interview the lorry driver.
The force says it is carrying out a "live investigation", but no arrests have yet been made. Bedfordshire Police is due to interview Mr Stockdale.
Dashcam footage of the encounter, recorded on the M1 near Northampton on 11 November, shows the lorry hitting Mr Stockdale's car.
"I honestly thought I was going to die," he wrote in a police statement.
"My life literally rushed before my eyes. Whilst that sounds dramatic, I can honestly say I have never felt fear like it. I began shaking uncontrollably."
The former special constable said he was driving southbound towards his home in Northampton when a lorry began flashing him, sounding its horn and driving up to the rear of his car.
Footage shows the lorry apparently bashing his car as it passed at about 20:40 GMT, and repeating the action 14 minutes later.
Mr Stockdale then called 999 and was connected to Northamptonshire Police. After the second incident, he was connected to Thames Valley and then Bedfordshire Police.
Despite assurances from all three forces that help was on the way, he said no-one arrived.
Mr Stockdale, who runs a dashcam company, followed the lorry to a depot in Dunstable where an ambulance took him to hospital with neck and shoulder pain.
Bedfordshire Police had called the paramedics and one of its officers arrived at the hospital nearly three hours after the first call was made.
Footage shows Mr Stockdale stayed in the middle lane for some time, which motorists can be fined for, but he said he was about to move over when the lorry driver began to "intimidate" him.
The Northamptonshire force said it could not attend because officers trained to deal with such incidents were in pursuit of a stolen car. The force has seen the footage and an investigation is under way but no arrests have been made yet, a spokesman confirmed.
Supt Dennis Murray, who is in charge of the force's control room, said: "What we should have done was contact the other forces... that's a failure on our part, for which I apologise to the driver of that vehicle."
The lorry driver, who lives in Bedfordshire, was employed by Wincanton hauliers through an agency. A spokesman confirmed he is "no longer conducting deliveries".
Liability for the car damage has been accepted by the firm's insurers.


Israel says it has found the bodies of eight gunmen who attacked a checkpoint on its border with Egypt, killing 16 Egyptian policemen.

The attackers attacked a border post at Rafah, captured two Egyptian army vehicles and then tried to smash their way over the border, Israel said.
One vehicle apparently blew up at the Kerem Shalom crossing, while the other was destroyed by the Israeli air force.
Egypt has declared three days of mourning for the dead policemen.
The Egyptian army vowed to avenge the deaths, in a statement carried by the official news agency Mena.
Islamist militants have been blamed by both sides for carrying out the raid.
The attack on the border post close to Gaza and Israel took place at about 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT) - when the sun was setting and the guards had stopped work for the traditional iftar meal, which breaks the daily fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Masked gunmen dressed as Bedouin nomads opened fire on police with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, Egyptian state television said.
Sixteen soldiers and border guards were killed and another seven were wounded, officials said.
Minutes later, one armoured vehicle taken by the gunmen blew up and another crossed the border into Israel before it was hit by the air force, Israeli media reported.
In all, eight militants were killed, Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak told a parliamentary committee in Jerusalem.
The vehicle that blew up was loaded with explosives, the Israeli prime minister's spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, said on Twitter.
The aim of the militants was to use stolen vehicles to target Israeli civilians, Israeli officials said.
Visiting the Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was saddened by the deaths of the Egyptian policemen.
"I think it is clear that Israel and Egypt have a common interest in keeping the border between us peaceful," he said.
But he added that the incident showed Israel had to rely on its own forces to ensure its security. Defence Minister Barak described the incident as a wake-up call for Egypt.
Egypt's state news agency quoted a top security official who said the gunmen were "jihadists" who had infiltrated from the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army had been prepared for such an incident and had stepped up patrols along the border with Gaza, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Brig-Gen Yoav Mordechai was quoted as saying.
Egypt's President Mohammed Mursi held an emergency meeting with military and security officials after the attack.
In a televised statement, he condemned what he called a "cowardly" attack and said the security forces would "take full control" of the Sinai peninsula.
As the search for any remaining gunmen continues, Egypt has closed its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, our Cairo correspondent Yolande Knell reports.
The Islamist Hamas movement, which governs Gaza, has condemned the attack.
The attack will be seen as more worrying evidence that Islamist militants have a firm foothold in the restive Northern Sinai region, our correspondent says.
They have been blamed for several rocket attacks against Israel and a cross-border raid that killed eight Israelis last year.
Recently, there have also been repeated attacks on the pipeline that exports gas to Israel and Jordan. Last month, two Egyptian soldiers were shot dead.
Egypt's military sent extra tanks and troops into the Sinai last year. The terms had to be agreed with Israel under the terms of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, our correspondent says.


A Liberal Democrat peer has resigned from his party's group in the House of Lords following allegations expected to be made in a Channel 4 investigation.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Dispatches will allege "a £10,000 donation was paid by the stepfather of an undercover businessman which would be against the rules on donations."
Lord Strasburger of Langridge has denied doing anything wrong.
The allegations are due to be broadcast in the Channel 4 programme next week.
The BBC has not seen any evidence to corroborate what the Daily Telegraph is reporting and neither has it heard from Channel 4.
Under rules overseen by the Electoral Commission and set out in law, any donation above £7,500 has to be declared and the use of a proxy as a donor - to hide the real giver of the money - is not allowed.
In a statement published by the Liberal Democrats, Lord Strasburger said: "Whatever Channel 4 may say in their Dispatches programme, I do not think I have committed any offence.
"Having said that, I believe that we should all be accountable for what we do, so I have invited the Electoral Commission to carry out an investigation into my actions.
"In the meantime, whilst I maintain that I have committed no offence, I have stopped fund-raising for the party.
"Also, for the sake of the party, I have resigned the whip from the Liberal Democrat group in the House of Lords until the investigation is completed."
In a response to a suggestion in the Daily Telegraph that this apparent donor, working for Dispatches, had met the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, a spokesman for the party said:  "It is common practice for senior party figures from all parties to meet with potential and current donors."
The statement adds: "Dispatches has raised important questions about one particular donation, which the party is taking seriously.
"The party had no reason to believe that the donation was made by anyone other than the person who signed the cheque."
Willie Rennie, who leads the Lib Dems in Scotland, says Lord Strasburger had taken the right course of action.
The MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife told the BBC: "We need to have a proper investigation to find out the truth in this regard and step back just now... the proper processes are taking place. We shouldn't make a judgement before that conclusion."
Lord Strasburger, 68, from Bath, is a semi-retired businessman who took his seat in the House of Lords as a life peer in 2011.


TV's Richard Madeley has hailed "Twitterpower" after a "peeping Tom" drone was allegedly flown over the garden of his idyllic seaside home.

Madeley took to Twitter when he spotted the device above the house he shares in Cornwall with his wife, 67-year-old fellow presenter Judy Finnigan.
The star, 59, said he chased the drone user and published his van registration number on the social media site.
Madeley said "minutes after" his tweet the man reported himself to the police.
Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed they were investigating whether a drone had been used legally.
Madeley said the man "called himself in to police with babbled excuses and apologies" following the incident in Talland Bay, near Looe, at about 14:00 BST on Tuesday.
A force spokesman said: "Police are looking into the use of the drone and if it was being used in accordance with the law."
Drones fitted with cameras must not be flown within 50m (164ft) of people, vehicles, buildings or structures, according to the Civil Aviation Authority's code.


Britain is to reopen its embassy in Tehran, four years after it closed.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will visit Iran at the weekend with a delegation of business leaders, a senior government source said.
The embassy was closed in 2011 after it was stormed by Iranian protesters during a demonstration against sanctions imposed by Britain.
The visit comes weeks after Tehran reached a deal with six world powers aimed at curbing its nuclear programme.
After the closure of the British embassy in Tehran and the Iranian embassy in London in 2011, diplomatic relations were left at "the lowest possible level", BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus said.
Since then "ties have slowly been warming", our correspondent said, but he added that last month's nuclear deal had clearly been decisive in prompting the UK embassy to be reopened.
Timeline: UK and Iran relations
Jonathan Marcus, BBC diplomatic correspondent
The reopening of Britain's embassy in Tehran will consolidate the normalisation of relations after a very bumpy period.
Britain was deeply aggrieved at the storming and ransacking of its embassy compound in November 2011, clearly feeling that the Iranian authorities should have protected the building.
While relations were not broken off, they were reduced to the lowest level possible. Ties have slowly been warming but it is clearly the successful conclusion of the nuclear accord with Iran that has paved the way for the embassy reopening.
A number of other European countries have already sent ministers and trade delegations hotfoot to Tehran in the wake of the nuclear deal. Britain has to an extent lagged behind.
The hope though is that better diplomatic ties and stronger economic links might help to bolster more reform-minded elements in the Iranian leadership and open up Iranian society to new pressures for change.
In 2013, the UK and Iran both confirmed the appointment of non-resident charges d'affaires to act as heads of diplomatic affairs.
The reopening of the embassy was first publicly proposed by William Hague in June last year, but it has been held up by technical problems.
Iran's reluctance to relax import laws has slowed the replacement of communications and other equipment taken out when the post was abandoned.
The Home Office has also sought assurances over visa regulations amid fears that it would otherwise be unable to deal with Iranians who overstayed their right to be in the UK.
"While any visa service must operate within the framework of Iranian law, it must also meet broader UK immigration objectives," it said.
"A visa service is an important component of normal embassy business, but there are a number of outstanding issues that must be resolved."
The BBC's Kim Ghattas recently spent a week in Iran - the longest period a BBC correspondent has been granted permission to report there since 2009 - and interviewed the Vice-President Masumeh Ebtekar about the country's thawing relations with the West.
Ms Ebtekar said that Iran wanted to co-operate with neighbouring states to promote peace in the Middle East, and that while Iran had a right to defend itself it had no intention of dominating the region.


The US state of Ohio plans to increase its dosage of death-penalty drugs after a convicted murderer took nearly half an hour to die from a new injection.

Lawyers for Dennis McGuire, 53, have argued he suffered an "agonising" death violating his constitutional rights.
But an official review determined he was asleep and did not experience pain.
The state will increase the amount of sedative and painkiller used in the two-drug injection, however, to "allay any remaining concerns".
McGuire "did not experience pain, distress or air hunger after the drugs were administered or when the bodily movements and sounds occurred," according to a Department of Rehabilitation and Correction review.
"His execution was conducted in a constitutional manner consistent with the policy."
Witnesses said McGuire - who raped and killed a pregnant woman in 1989 - gasped for up to 26 minutes on 16 January before he died from the sedative midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone.
It is the longest execution since Ohio resumed the practice in 1999.
The state was forced to change its lethal injection to a new two-drug cocktail after the Danish maker of the previous execution drug refused to allow its use in capital punishment.
The planned drug increase comes 30 days before the state's next scheduled execution - of a man convicted of the 1983 killing of a produce vendor - on 28 May.
On Tuesday, two death row inmates who lost a case in the Oklahoma Supreme Court are due to be put to death.
The court ruled they had no right to know the source of the drugs that will be used to kill them.


A fifth of people with advanced melanoma have no sign of tumours in their body after treatment with a pair of immunotherapy drugs, a study shows.

The first survival data on using ipilimumab and nivolumab in combination showed 69% of patients, in a trial on 142, were still alive after two years.
UK doctors leading the trial said the results were "very encouraging".
Melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, is the sixth most common cancer in the UK
It kills more than 2,000 people in Britain each year.
Data from a separate melanoma study on Merck's immunotherapy pembrolizumab also showed an increase in survival.
The drug also works by cutting the immune system's brakes.
The results of an early stage trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed a third of patients lived for 12 months with no sign of the tumour growing.
The immune system is a powerful defence against infection. However, there are many "brakes" built in to stop it attacking our own tissues.
Cancer - which is a corrupted version of healthy tissue - can take advantage of those brakes to evade assault.
Ipilimumab and nivolumab are designed to cut the brakes.
Both have become standard therapies in melanoma, but most researchers believe combination therapy will be essential.
The trial showed the survival rate after two years for ipilimumab alone was 53% and no patient's tumours had completely disappeared.
The equivalent figures for combination therapy were 69% and 22%.
However, more than half of patients had severe to life-threatening side effects which stopped their treatment.
Dr James Larkin, who ran part of the trial at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, told the BBC News website: "It is very encouraging to see that survival rate.
"It will be important in terms of working out the benefit of these treatments in the longer term, but nevertheless it's a relatively small study still."
A much larger trial involving nearly 1,000 patients has already started releasing data, but has not run for long enough to produce survival figures.
Vicky Brown, 61 and from Cardiff, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma that had spread to her lungs and breast in April 2013.
She started the combination therapy later that year.
"It worked within a month. There were lumps I could actually feel and they disappeared quite quickly," she told the BBC.
She did face severe side effects including an upset liver and inflamed bowels and a year later the cancer returned.
She is now on her second course of combination immunotherapy, which again seems to have shrunk the tumours.
"My granddaughter is now coming up to four and I now have a second grandchild and not to have been part of their lives would have been heartbreaking, so I'm really thankful," she added.
Historically, when a treatment fails and a cancer starts to grow again then that drug has become useless. But Dr Larkin thinks "we're dealing with something different here".
He added: "This combination of drugs alters the balance of immune system, two years down the line the immune system might have stopped recognising the tumour.
"To me it is extremely encouraging that giving the combination again we can reintroduce recognition by the immune system - it is like a booster dose."
Both drugs were developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Prof Richard Marais, from Cancer Research UK, said the results were "exciting" and "offer new hope to melanoma patients and their families".
However, he added: "It's important to remember that there's an increased likelihood of severe side effects when these drugs are combined.
"We need to identify which patients are most likely to benefit from this combination and also which patients are most likely to experience the side effects.
"That will help doctors to ensure each patient gets the best treatment they need."
Follow James on Twitter.


The idea that a dog takes on the personality of its owner has received scientific support.

Researchers in Austria say dogs can mirror the anxiety and negativity of owners.
And dogs that are relaxed and friendly can pass this on to humans, perhaps helping their owners cope with stress.
More than 100 dogs and their owners underwent various tests, including measurement of heart rate and their response to threat.
Saliva samples were also taken to measure cortisol levels, a marker for stress.
The owners were then assessed for the big five hallmarks of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
The personality of dogs was also assessed with a questionnaire.
Dr Iris Schoberl, of the University of Vienna, said both owners and dogs influenced each other's coping mechanisms, with the human partner being more influential than the dog.
"Our results nicely fit to experience from practice: owners and dogs are social dyads [a group of two], and they influence each other's stress coping," she told BBC News.
She said dogs are sensitive to their owners' emotional states and may mirror their emotions.
Dogs have lived alongside humans for more than 30,000 years.
Evidence shows they can pick up emotional information from people and adjust their behaviour accordingly.
The research is published in the journal, PLOS ONE.
Follow Helen on Twitter.


Four men were taken to hospital with bullet wounds to their legs after an incident in Birmingham city centre.

Police said they were called to the Costcutter shop in Great Hampton Row on Saturday afternoon.
Three men remain in hospital for treatment for their injuries, which are not thought to be life-threatening.
West Midlands Police refused to speculate on any motive for the attack. There were no arrests and no direct appeal for witnesses.
Det Sgt Reg Collett said extra patrols were in the area "to provide reassurance".
"Urgent police enquiries in to the incident and what led up to it are continuing," he said.
"The scene was cordoned off yesterday to allow forensic examinations to take place."
The BBC tried to reach Costcutter for a comment.


A court in Egypt has set the appeals hearing of three jailed al-Jazeera journalists for 1 January, says the family of one of them.

Mohamed Fahmy's family said Cairo's Court of Cassation will hear the case.
The three journalists of the Qatar-based broadcaster were jailed for seven years on 23 June. They were accused of spreading false news and supporting the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood.
The court will either uphold the verdict or call for a retrial.
It is thought the Court of Cassation will take one or two sessions to deliver its ruling.
A lawyer familiar with the case told the BBC that if the court rejects the sentences, the case will return to the criminal court for a retrial.
Should it uphold the verdict, the only other alternative is for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to offer a pardon.
Egyptian-Canadian bureau chief Mr Fahmy, Australian correspondent Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed were arrested on 29 December last year.
At the sentencing in June, Mr Fahmy received a further three years on charges of possessing "unlicensed ammunition".
Eleven other defendants, including three foreign journalists, tried in absentia at the same time received 10-year sentences.
The sentencing of the three sparked an international outcry and raised concerns over growing media restrictions in Egypt.
Journalists around the world held silent protests against their imprisonment
Al-Jazeera was banned from operating inside Egypt after the authorities accused it of broadcasting reports sympathetic to former President Mohammed Morsi and the now banned Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Jazeera has consistently denied the allegations.
However Qatar has supported the Brotherhood and is unpopular with Egypt's government.


Ireland kept alive their hopes at the inaugural Desert T20 tournament as they beat Namibia by five wickets in a close contest in Abu Dhabi.

Chasing Namibia's 146-9, the Irish sneaked home with two balls to spare, helped by Gary Wilson's unbeaten 38 and two late Andy McBrine boundaries.
Earlier, Louis van der Westhuizen struck 50 for the Namibians with fellow opener Stephan Baard contributing 32.
They put on 81 for the first wicket in 8.4 overs as a big total looked likely.
However after van der Westhuizen's departure, the Namibian innings lost momentum as O'Brien, Joshua Little, Craig Young and Jacob Mulder all took two wickets.
Stuart Poynter also hit 38 for Ireland with O'Brien notching 22.
It was great to be among the runs and to get the winning feeling again
After the departures of Paul Stirling and skipper William Porterfield left the Irish on 25-2 after 3.4 overs, Poynter and O'Brien put on 48 for the third wicket before they were out in quick succession to leave the innings on 83-4.
At that stage, Ireland looked to be running out of batsmen but Wilson and Greg Thompson produced a crucial 45 partnership before McBrine's two boundaries in the final over helped guide the Irish to victory.
After losing their opener against Afghanistan on Saturday, the Irish needed a victory to get their qualification hopes back on track.
Victory against the United Arab Emirates, the hosts, in Dubai on Wednesday will guarantee the Irish a place in the semi-finals on Friday, with the final also taking place on the same day.
"It was great to be among the runs to see the team over the line and get the winning feeling again," said wicketkeeper Wilson who has joined Derbyshire from Surrey.
"It is a winner takes all contest against the hosts on Wednesday. We have a good record against the UAE so hopefully we can continue that in what is a big game for both teams."
Wilson acknowledged the role played in Tuesday's win by Ireland's stand-in opener Stuart Poynter - the Durham man a late call-up to the squad after injuries to Andrew Balbirnie and Stuart Thompson.
"All credit to Stu Poynter, as it's never easy coming in to a side when you haven't been selected first.  He's a very clean striker of the ball and we saw that today," added Wilson.


A bullock that had its face blurred by Google Street View has proved a hit on social media.

The animal was snapped by Google's cameras at Coe Fen, Cambridge, and seemingly given the same treatment humans receive for privacy reasons.
A tweet by The Guardian's David Shariatmadari highlighting the sight was retweeted more than 9,000 times.
Google admitted its face-blurring technology had been "a little overzealous".
The animal's face can clearly be seen grazing near the river River Cam on an image taken slightly further away, but Google seems to have blurred it for a close-up view.
Google's Street View launched in 2007 and received widespread media coverage as cars mounted with cameras mapped streets around the world.
To help combat privacy concerns, software is used to automatically blur human faces.
Mr Shariatmadari spotted the bovine anomaly and posted it on Twitter, saying it was "great to see Google takes cow privacy seriously".
"Udderly ridiculous," said one user in reply. "Google teat view," said another.
It has also been reported by the Cambridge News and national media.
So far the tweet has been liked more than 12,000 times.
A spokesman for Google said: "We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it's clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous.
"Of course, we don't begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame."


A flypast and thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey attended by the Prince of Wales have marked the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Spitfires and Hurricanes flew over London to honour the pilots and aircrew who took part in the World War Two battle.
Veterans and dignitaries watched as the RAF Regiment Band filed past Church House in Westminster.
More than 544 RAF personnel were killed during the 1940 campaign.
Prince Charles also attended a reception for veterans and their families.
Veterans gathered in the RAF Chapel at the Abbey and a wreath was laid on behalf of "The Few" - the term for the airmen, which comes from Sir Winston Churchill's phrase: "Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few."
Prince Charles, who is patron of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, also laid a wreath on the memorial stone to Sir Winston, handed to him by the late prime minister's grandson Sir Nicholas Soames.
Battle of Britain: July to October 1940
What was the secret to winning the Battle of Britain?
Why do we love the Spitfire?
Battles of Britain: Vote for which one changed us most
A range of events have already been staged over the past few months to mark the fighting, which raged between July and October 1940.
On Tuesday a service was held at St Paul's Cathedral on Battle of Britain Day - the name given to the day, on 15 September 1940, when the Luftwaffe launched its largest and most concentrated attack against London in the hope of drawing out the RAF.
A flypast of Spitfires, Hurricanes and Blenheims, from across the UK, US and Europe, took off from Goodwood Aerodrome. Present-day owners, operators, pilots and engineers were there alongside veterans.


Thailand's newly-proclaimed King Vajiralongkorn - his name means "adorned with jewels or thunderbolts" - was born on 28 July 1952, the first son and second child of Queen Sirikit and King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had succeeded to the throne unexpectedly six years previously.

After decades of uncertainty over royal succession, the birth of a male heir was seen as vital for the monarchy, at a time when its primacy in Thailand's political hierarchy was uncertain. The absolute monarchy had been overthrown in 1932, followed by an abdication in 1935, and 11 years in which the country had no sitting king.
In King Vajiralongkorn's early years he was educated at a palace school in Bangkok. At the age of 13 he was sent to two private schools in the UK for five years, and then for a final year at a school in Sydney, Australia. He spent the following four years being trained at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra.
By his own account, he struggled to keep up at school, blaming his pampered upbringing in the palace. He also found it hard to make the grade at Duntroon.
He continued to receive advanced military training in Thailand, the UK, US and Australia, and became an officer in the Thai armed forces. He is a qualified civilian and fighter pilot, flying his own Boeing 737 when he travels overseas.
He was formally given the title of Crown Prince by his father in an investiture ceremony in 1972, making him the official heir. But by that time questions were being raised about his fitness to succeed to the throne.
He showed none of the enthusiasm of his younger sister Princess Sirindhorn for his father's development projects and there were persistent rumours of womanising, gambling and illegal businesses.
In 1981 his mother, Queen Sirikit, alluded to these problems, describing her son as "a bit of a Don Juan" and suggesting that he preferred spending his weekends with beautiful women rather than performing duties.
In a rare audience with Thai journalists in 1992, he denied the rumours that he was involved with mafia-like figures and underworld businesses.
In 1977 he married his cousin Princess Soamsawali and they had their first child, Princess Bajarakitiyabha, in December 1978. However, by then he was involved with a young actress, Yuvadhida, with whom he had five children from 1979 to 1987. He married her in 1994, but in 1996 very publicly denounced her and disowned his four sons, who were studying in the UK.
He married his third wife Srirasmi, a lady-in-waiting, in 2001, and had another son, Prince Dipangkorn, with her in 2005.
In 2014 Srirasmi was stripped of her royal title and nine of her relatives, including her parents, were arrested for lese majeste on charges they had abused their connections with the Crown Prince. A police officer linked to the family died in custody after falling from a window.
That charge, of abusing his name, has also been made against others who became close to the Crown Prince, notably a well known fortune teller who, together with another police officer, died after being arrested late last year. At the same time, the Crown Prince's personal bodyguard was stripped of his rank for "disobeying royal commands" and "threatening the monarchy by pursuing his own interests". He disappeared and is believed to have died.
King Vajiralongkorn is these days seen in the company of a former Thai Airways flight attendant, Suthida, who has been made an officer of the Royal Household Guard, with the rank of Lieutenant-General. He also famously promoted his pet poodle Fu-Fu to the rank of Air Chief Marshall.
The severity of the lese majeste law has prevented any open discussion of the new king's suitability inside Thailand. But privately, the possibility of Vajiralongkorn being passed over for his more popular and dutiful sister Sirindhorn was often talked about, encouraged by her own royal title being elevated in 1978 and by a change in palace succession law to allow a female to succeed to the throne.
But that is only possible where there is no male heir, and King Bhumibol never supported the option of an alternative to his son.
As King Bhumibol's health declined, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn began to be seen more often in public, performing traditional royal rituals on behalf of his father.
In the past there were rumours of a business relationship between him and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the telecoms tycoon whose party has won every election since 2001 and who was seen as a threat by much of the conservative royalist elite.
But after the coup in 2014, which deposed the government of Thaksin's sister Yingluck, the new military rulers appeared to work with the Crown Prince to ensure his succession, helping organise events like mass bicycle rides in which he and his daughters participated, presenting a less formal image of the future king to the public.
Just what kind of king Vajiralongkorn will make is hard to guess.
Although a constitutional monarch, he will wield considerable power - for example, it is almost impossible for anyone in Thailand to reject the express wishes of the monarch.
He also has a decisive say over the Crown Property Bureau, by far the wealthiest institution in Thailand, with assets valued at between $30-40bn (£24-32bn), giving the palace largely untaxed annual income of around $300m. And he commands his own personal regiment of the Royal Guard, comprising an estimated 5,000 troops.
One advantage he will not have is the immense prestige and respect built by his father over 70 years on the throne, which Thai royal experts point out must be earned, not inherited. Vajiralongkorn, at the age of 64, will not have so long to make his mark on the monarchy. But he has had decades to observe and learn from the complex flow of power that surrounds the monarch.
He will preside over the elaborate and prolonged funeral rituals for the late king, giving him a chance to enhance his own standing in the process.
He may well be able to rely on the lasting reverence for his father to shore up the monarchy's central role in Thai society.