Editor's note

One year ago today, the fire at Grenfell Tower laid bare the fault lines in British society. In one of London’s wealthiest boroughs, working class and ethnic minority families were left devastated by the loss of 120 homes and 72 loved ones. Helen Carr writes about a catastrophic regulatory failure and how other high rise tenants can – and should – pursue legal action to ensure their homes are safe. Yet tragedies can also unite people, as Joseph Downing and Richard Dron discovered. Their analysis of social media shows how users challenged fake news and rallied behind a stricken community. And as the public inquiry takes a pause for the day, Konstantinos Tsavdaridis sums up what we know about the causes of the fire – and how to make sure it never happens again.

Antarctica is roughly the size of the US and Mexico combined, and it’s almost entirely covered in a mile or more of ice. Now, researchers have combined various satellite recordings to reveal just how fast the ice sheet is melting away. The continent has lost nearly 3 trillion tonnes of ice, say Thomas Slater and Andrew Shepherd, and there’s more to come.

Foam rolling is the latest craze to sweep gyms, attracting celebrity devotees like Shakira and Sarah Jessica Parker. But examine the science and it turns out there’s much we still don’t know – not least how getting horizontal with a neoprene tube actually works on the body. Lewis MacGregor and Angus Hunter explain what researchers understand and what they’re still figuring out.

And the World Cup kicks off today. For ongoing coverage from academic experts, click here.

Emily Lindsay Brown

Editor for Cities and Young People

Top stories

Never to be repeated. EPA/Neil Hall

Grenfell: a year on, here's what we know went wrong

Konstantinos Daniel Tsavdaridis, University of Leeds

A year on what do we know about how the Grenfell fire spread? And what changes need to happen to make sure there is never a repeat?

Will Oliver/EPA

Grenfell Tower: how Twitter users fought off fake news to honour Muslim heroes

Joseph Downing, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS); Richard Dron, University of Salford

A new analysis of 44,000 tweets reveals that fake news isn't always persuasive.

Chalcots Estate in Camden is covered in the same cladding as Grenfell Tower was. mattbuck/Wikimedia Commons.

Grenfell: box-ticking building regulations leave tower blocks prone to disaster – but residents can fight back

Helen Carr, University of Kent

Grenfell was a 'catastrophic regulatory failure', and reform is still needed – but above all, tenants must be empowered to make their homes safe.

Christian Wilkinson / shutterstock

Antarctica has lost nearly 3 trillion tonnes of ice since 1992

Thomas Slater, University of Leeds; Andrew Shepherd, University of Leeds

We used 11 different satellite missions to track Antarctica’s contribution to rising sea levels.

Roll your own. fotoliza

Does foam rolling actually do any good?

Lewis Macgregor, University of Stirling; Angus Hunter, University of Stirling

Gyms have gone mad for these bits of neoprene. Yet researchers are still scrambling to catch up.

Education

Environment + Energy

Science + Technology

  • Why 50,000 ships are so vulnerable to cyberattacks

    Keith Martin, Royal Holloway; Rory Hopcraft, Royal Holloway

    Cyber vulnerabilities in shipping show how far the industry has to go. But proper cyber security of ships is more complex than you might initially think.

Health + Medicine

Politics + Society

 

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