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Editor's note
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Towards the end of his life, the 10th century Caliph of Córdoba decided to count up the numbers of days he had ever felt truly happy. He only managed to get to 14. In today’s world, in which nations are ranked in a global happiness index, a multi-billion dollar happiness industry exists, and the pursuit of happiness is one of the USA’s “inalienable rights”, this may seem a fairly paltry number. But how many days have you enjoyed a state of sustained joy?
The truth is that human beings are not built to be happy. We are designed primarily to survive and reproduce, writes Rafael Euba, and this means that a state of contentment is actively discouraged by nature. Depressed? Don’t be. Acknowledging that your emotional fluctuations are what makes you human is a far better route to a balanced life.
Meanwhile, the Ebola epidemic has officially been declared a global health emergency, which should act as a call to the international community to act. And what makes you a celebrity? Claims have been circulating that anyone with 30,000 Instagram followers can consider themselves one after a recent advertising ruling. But this is not really the case.
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Josephine Lethbridge
Interdisciplinary Editor
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Top stories
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Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley/Shutterstock.com
Rafael Euba, King's College London
Happiness is a human construct, an abstract idea with no biological basis. But this is something to be happy about.
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A worker of the Democratic Republic of Congo Health Ministry checks people’s temperature in Goma.
Patricia Martinez/EPA
Mark Eccleston-Turner, Keele University
Ebola has now now spread to Goma – a city of 2m people.
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Shutterstock.
Hayleigh Bosher, Brunel University London
Rules against celebrity endorsements of medicines are there to protect consumers – it doesn't matter how many followers influencers have.
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Science + Technology
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Neil Dagnall, Manchester Metropolitan University; Ken Drinkwater, Manchester Metropolitan University
Three classic examples of the "Mandala Effect" debunked.
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David Rothery, The Open University
We have the Apollo missions to thank for a lot of our geological knowledge about the moon.
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Politics + Society
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Chris Allen, University of Leicester
Why the extremism definition is unfit for purpose.
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Erica Frankenberg, Pennsylvania State University
US school segregation is higher than it has been in decades, even if there are no longer overt laws requiring racially segregated schools.
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Business + Economy
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Michael Smets, University of Oxford; Tim Morris, University of Oxford
Two leadership experts weigh up the characteristics of the Conservative Party leadership hopefuls.
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Environment + Energy
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Dannielle Green, Anglia Ruskin University
Our experiment shows we need to work out just how damaging discarded cigarettes are to plantlife.
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Arts + Culture
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Fiona Shaw, Northumbria University, Newcastle
There was an outcry in the LGBT community when the ending of Fiona Shaw's bestselling novel was changed for the film.
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Featured events
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King's Manor, York, York, YO1 7EP, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of York
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