Resources roundup: Plants and ABS; Arctic Peoples and Climate Change; Data Mining in China; Aztec Arithmetic

Several recent papers of interest [subscriptions required]:

• Patent protection and access to genetic resources Itsuki Shimbo, Yoko Ito & Koichi Sumikura | Nature Biotechnology 26, 645: 2008 | DOI:10.1038/nbt0608-645
  Developing countries and patent offices have shown differing approaches to patent specification disclosure requirements and benefit sharing. This article reviews various international instruments as well as national approaches, including those of the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew in the United Kingdom, the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation in Japan and the RIKEN Center of Research Network for Infectious Diseases.
• Arctic Indigenous Peoples as Representations and Representatives of Climate Change Marybeth Long Martello | Social Studies of Science, Vol. 38, No. 3, 351-376: 2008 | DOI: 10.1177/0306312707083665
  Recent scientific findings, as presented in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), indicate that climate change in the Arctic is happening now, at a faster rate than elsewhere in the world, and with major implications for peoples of the Arctic (especially indigenous peoples) and the rest of the planet. This paper examines scientific and political representations of Arctic indigenous peoples that have been central to the production and articulation of these claims. The authority, credibility, and visibility of Arctic indigenous activists derive, in part, from their status as at-risk experts, a status buttressed by new scientific frameworks and methods that recognize and rely on the local experiences and knowledges of indigenous peoples. Analyses of relationships linking scientific and political representations of Arctic climate change build upon science and technology studies (STS) scholarship on visualization, challenge conventional notions of globalization, and raise questions about power and accountability in global climate change research.
• Data Mining for Chinese Materia Medica and Pharmacological Research Ho Yan Gloria Tse, Vincent Wai Tsun Li, Michelle N.Y. Hui, Po Kwok Chan, and Shuk Han Cheng | Journal of Biomolecular Screening, Vol. 13, No. 5, 390-395: 2008 | DOI: 10.1177/1087057108317264
  Chinese materia medica (CMM) is becoming increasingly important in modern health care, with the potential for new or improved clinical protocols and reduction in treatment costs. Conventional approaches to drug discovery are based on knowledge of biological systems and screen phenotypes in the context of a whole organism. The authors have developed a database that they plan to commercialize that contains traditional knowledge of Chinese medicine and pharmacology along with their own experimental data from controlled scientific observations by using the zebrafish as a model of CMM-induced pathology. The database is visualized and functions via the World Wide Web by subscription or license. This provides a platform for the study of CMM, and data mining of this resource will help evaluate CMM in the context of experimental observations of biological aberrations.
• Aztec Arithmetic Revisited: Land-Area Algorithms and Acolhua Congruence Arithmetic
  Barbara J. Williams and María del Carmen Jorge y Jorge | Science 4 April 2008: Vol. 320. no. 5872, pp. 72 – 77 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1153976
  Acolhua-Aztec land records depicting areas and side dimensions of agricultural fields provide insight into Aztec arithmetic. Hypothesizing that recorded areas resulted from indigenous calculation, in a study of sample quadrilateral fields the authors found that 60% of the area values could be reproduced exactly by computation. In remaining cases, discrepancies between computed and recorded areas were consistently small, suggesting use of an unknown indigenous arithmetic. In revisiting the research, evidence was discovered for the use of congruence principles, based on proportions between the standard linear Acolhua measure and their units of shorter length. This procedure substitutes for computation with fractions and is labeled “Acolhua congruence arithmetic.” The findings also clarify variance between Acolhua and Tenochca linear units, long an issue in understanding Aztec metrology.