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b'How We Arrived At Current Standards Of Care For Trans Medicine\\nSo far this year, 16 states have moved to restrict or completely ban transgender kids access to gender affirming care. And 17 other states are considering similar laws, a handful even trying to restrict care for adults.\\nThis political controversy has drawn increased attention to \\u201cStandards of Care,\\u201d a set of guidelines written by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH. Health professionals are encouraged to consult these guidelines when providing gender affirming care like puberty blockers, hormones and surgery to transgender patients.\\nA new version of the standards were released last fall, sparking controversy. Some conservatives saw the guidelines as making transition too easy, and seized the moment to further restrict transition-related care. Some trans activists and health care providers felt the opposite, seeing the 2022 guidelines as too restrictive, creating unnecessary hurdles to life-saving medicine.\\nHow did we get to a point where one document is supposed to shape all of trans medicine?\\nGuest host Maddie Sofia talks with Hil Malatino, Assistant Professor of Women\\u2019s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Philosophy at Penn State University, to put in perspective the history of gender affirming care.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nHow The Cherokee Nation Is Saving Culturally Significant Seeds\\nThink about your family heirlooms\\u2014the most prized items passed down from generation to generation, that tell a story about who you are and where you come from.\\nDid you ever think that seeds could be part of that story? This year, the Cherokee Nation Seed Bank is continuing its program to distribute heirloom seeds to tribal citizens, one that\\u2019s been running since 2006. Last year, the Nation distributed almost 10,000 seed packets to citizens across the country in an effort to keep these culturally significant plants from being lost.\\nThis year, the Cherokee Nation is sharing seeds for a variety of Cherokee corn, gourds, beans, pumpkins, beads, and native plants and flowers.\\nGuest host John Dankosky talks with Feather Smith, the Cherokee Nation\\u2019s ethnobiologist, about how Cherokee heirloom seeds have been cultivated, planted, and preserved over the years.\\nTo see an image gallery of the Cherokee Nation heirloom garden, visit sciencefriday.com.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nThe Long Legacy Of The Alpha Wolf Myth\\nAround the 1970s, the world latched onto a catchy new scientific term: alpha wolf. It described the top dog that clawed its way to the top of its pack, and it quickly became a mainstream symbol for power and dominance.\\nThe idea of the alpha wolf was debunked almost 25 years ago, but its legacy lives on. Most commonly, it\\u2019s found in circles of the internet where men appoint themselves alpha wolf, and also in dog training. Strangely, those two things are connected.\\nGuest host Maddie Sofia explores how science works and how people use it in their everyday lives, whether it\\u2019s true or not. And a little about what happens when science goes mainstream.\\nMaddie first talks with Dr. Dave Mech, senior research scientist at the US Geological Survey and founder of the International Wolf Center. His 1970 book \\u201cThe Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species\\u201d helped popularize the term \\u201calpha wolf.\\u201d But when he discovered that alpha wolves aren\\u2019t really real many years later, he tried to right the wrong.\\nThen, Maddie talks with two researchers about how the alpha wolf idea is still around today: Anamarie Johnson, PhD candidate and canine behavior consultant at Arizona State University, and Dr. Lindsay Palmer, social and behavioral scientist who studies the human-animal bond at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. They explore how biases and societal ideas shape science, and connect the dots between alpha wolves, masculinity, and dog training.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nTranscripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on\\xa0sciencefriday.com.'