Editorial 1: The fossil that’s changing what we know about patterns innature
Context
- Fibonacci spirals are so common in plants today that they are believed to represent an ancient and highly conserved feature, dating back to the earliest stages of plant evolution and persisting in their present forms. But a new study, based on 407-million-year-old fossils, challenges this.
About
- What ties all of these botanical features together is their shared characteristic of being arranged in spirals that adhere to a numerical sequence called theFibonacci sequence.
- These spirals, referred to as Fibonacci spirals for simplicity, are extremely widespread in plants and have fascinated scientists from Leonardo da Vinci to Charles Darwin.
- Such is the prevalence of Fibonacci spirals in plants today that they are believed to represent an ancient and highly conserved feature, dating back to the earliest stages of plant evolution and persisting in their present forms.
- However, our new study challenges this viewpoint. Recently scientists examined the spirals in the leaves and reproductive structures of a fossilised plant dating back 407 million years and surprisingly discovered that all of the spirals observed in this particular species did not follow this same rule.
- Today, only a very few plants don’t follow a Fibonacci pattern.
Fibonacci spirals
- Spirals occur frequently in nature and can be seen in plant leaves, animal shells and even in the double helix of our DNA.
- In most cases, these spirals relate to the Fibonacci sequence – a set of numbers where each is the sum of the two numbers that precede it (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on).
- These patterns are particularly widespread in plants and can even be recognised with the naked eye.
- At first, you may only spot spirals in one direction. But look closely and you can see both clockwise and anticlockwise spirals.
- In a study that analysed 6,000 pinecones, Fibonacci spirals were found in 97% of the examined cones.
- Fibonacci spirals are not just found in pine cones. They are common in other plant organs such as leaves and flowers.
- Due to their frequency in living plant species, it has long been thought that Fibonacci spirals were ancient and highly conserved in all plants.
- However in a study it was found that non-Fibonacci spirals were the most common arrangement.
- The discovery of non-Fibonacci spirals in such an early fossil is surprising as they are very rare in living plant species today.
Distinct evolutionary history
- These findings change our understanding of Fibonacci spirals in land plants.
- They suggest that non-Fibonacci spirals were ancient in clubmosses, overturning the view that all leafy plants started out growing leaves that followed the Fibonacci pattern.
- Furthermore, it suggests that leaf evolution and Fibonacci spirals in clubmosses had an evolutionary history distinct from other groups of living plants today, such as ferns, conifers and flowering plants.
- It suggests that Fibonacci spirals emerged separately multiple times throughout plant evolution.
Conclusion
- Knowing of this study would help in the common understanding of plant evolution and it’s characteristics.
Editorial 2: Laying the foundation for a future-ready digital India
Context
- The proposed ‘Digital India Bill’ holds out the promise of not only upgrading the current legal regime but also redefining the contours of how technology is regulated.
Background
- The Ministry of Electronics and IT has been actively organising consultations on the proposed “Digital India Bill” to build conceptual alignment on a new law that will replace India’s 23-year-old Information Technology (IT) Act.
- The goal is to upgrade the current legal regime to tackle emerging challenges such as user harm, competition and misinformation in the digital space.
- This is a much-anticipated piece of legislation that is likely to redefine the contours of how technology is regulated, not just in India but also globally.
The present regime
- The current IT Act defines an “intermediary” to include any entity between a user and the Internet, and
- the IT Rules sub-classify intermediaries into three main categories: “Social Media Intermediaries” (SMIs), “Significant Social Media Intermediaries” (SSMIs) and the recently notified, “Online Gaming Intermediaries”.
- SMIs are platforms that facilitate communication and sharing of information between users, and SMIs that have a very large user base (above a specified threshold) are designated as SSMIs.
- However, the definition of SMIs is so broad that it can encompass a variety of services such as video communications, matrimonial websites, email and even online comment sections on websites.
- The rules also lay down stringent obligations for most intermediaries, such as a 72-hour timeline for responding to law enforcement asks and resolving ‘content take down’ requests.
The lacunae
- Unfortunately, ISPs, websites, e-commerce platforms, and cloud services are all treated similarly.
- Treating these intermediaries like conventional social media platforms not only adds to their cost of doing business but also exposes them to greater liability without meaningfully reducing risks presented by the Internet.
- The European Union’s Digital Services Act is probably one of the most developed frameworks for us to consider.
- It introduces some exemptions and creates three tiers of intermediaries — hosting services, online platforms and “very large online platforms”, with increasing legal obligations.
- Australia has created an eight-fold classification system, with separate industry-drafted codes governing categories such as social media platforms and search engines.
- Intermediaries are required to conduct risk assessments, based on the potential for exposure to harmful content such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or terrorism.
Focus areas for India
- While a granular, product-specific classification could improve accountability and safety online, such an approach may not be future-proof.
- As technology evolves, the specific categories we define today may not work in the future.
- What we need, therefore, is a classification framework that creates a few defined categories, requires intermediaries to undertake risk assessments and uses that information to bucket them into relevant categories.
- Given the lower risks, the obligations placed on intermediaries that are not communication services should be lesser, but they could still be required to appoint a grievance officer, cooperate with law enforcement, identify advertising, and take down problematic content within reasonable timelines.
- Intermediaries that offer communication services could be asked to undertake risk assessments based on the number of their active users, risk of harm and potential for virality of harmful content.
- The largest communication services (platforms such as Twitter) could then be required to adhere to special obligations such as appointing India-based officers and setting up in-house grievance appellate mechanisms with independent external stakeholders to increase confidence in the grievance process.
- Alternative approaches to curbing virality, such as circuit breakers to slow down content, could also be considered.
Way forward
- For the proposed approach to be effective, metrics for risk assessment and appropriate thresholds would have to be defined and reviewed on a periodic basis in consultation with industry.
- In doing so, it could help create a regulatory environment that helps achieve the government’s policy goal of creating a safer Internet ecosystem, while also allowing businesses to thrive.