An American convicted of a federal crime is seven percent more likely to be sentenced to jail time if they are black than if they are white. That jail time is likely to be eight months longer if the person is black. That’s a major disparity, but it’s also a major improvement over where we were 20 years ago.

Here are the stories on Living Lab Radio for August 25 and 26, 2019.

There’s record low Arctic sea ice. There’s record melting of Greenland’s glaciers. There’s unprecedented permafrost melting. And more than a million acres has been burned by wildfires in Alaska. Each of these stories has garnered headlines this summer, but they have tended to be presented as separate events. In actuality, they are all part of the broader phenomenon of extreme Arctic warming, and they are intimately linked to each other.

It’s time for our monthly tour of science headlines from our friends at the Journal Nature and the Nature podcast.

Looking for good book - maybe something a little different - to see you through those final days of summer? LabLit is different than science fiction. It's fiction that features realistic science and scientists. LabLit.com founder and editor, Jenny Rohn, is prone to getting excited over "hard-core lab scenes." But she's more focused on finding a good story than making sure the science is perfect.

Many of us steer around difficult political conversations to avoid conflict with people with whom we disagree. Among people we know, we employ the tried-and-true method of staying away from politics and religion. But there’s an entire laboratory dedicated to the practice of discussing challenging topics. It’s the Difficult Conversations Lab at Columbia University .

"The changes that are happening in the Arctic can feel very far away, but we can now recognize that all of these changes we've talked about together have been fundamentally caused by human action. But the good news is that the future of these changes will also be fundamentally determined by human action. So, we can be really active players in what the future holds." - Twila Moon

Steven D. Allison , University of California, Irvine and Tyrus Miller , University of California, Irvine Large wildfires in the Arctic and intense heat waves in Europe are just the latest evidence that climate change is becoming the defining event of our time. Unlike other periods that came and went, such as the 1960s or the dot-com boom, an era of unchecked climate change will lead to complex and irreversible changes in Earth’s life support systems.

The Perseid meteor shower is at its peak right now. If you’re the super-early-morning type (like 3:00 AM early) it can make for a great light show. But researchers at NASA keep an eye on events like this for different reasons, not least of which is the risk they can pose to satellites and spacecraft in Earth’s orbit.

It’s tough to study rare diseases. Because they affect only a small percentage of the population, it can be hard for researchers to find funding. It’s also challenging to do clinical trials, since there are a small number of people who can take part. But rare disease research can yield discoveries that impact all of us.