📌 TOPINDIATOURS Eksklusif ai: The Venezuela Polymarket Scandal Is Looking Really B

As details emerge regarding the prediction betting scandal surrounding the US attacks on Venezuela, it’s becoming harder and harder to imagine any explanation other than the obvious: that an insider took advantage of nonpublic knowledge to make a quick buck.

Fresh reporting by the Wall Street Journal found that the anonymous bettor on Polymarket doubled down on their wager just five hours before over 150 US aircraft rocked the nation’s capital of Caracas. At least 80 civilians and military personnel have died from the US attacks, which satisfied the conditions of the anonymous bettor’s wager — netting them a cool $410,000.

What’s really astonishing is the timing of the bets placed. The WSJ breakdown shows just how close the mysterious insider came to the wire: on January 2nd, between 8:38 and 9:58pm, the bettor took out over $20,000 betting on an eminent attack on Venezuelan soil. At 10:46pm, president Donald Trump issued orders authorizing the military strike — not even an hour after the final bet had been placed.

At around 1:00am on January 3rd, explosions began to shake Caracas, destroying government buildings, civilian apartments, and even technical buildings at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research. By 8:41am that same morning, the trader began to cash out their earnings — some $410,000, likely won at an unspeakable cost.

Making matters even more suspicious is the fact that the account was only one week old by the time the strikes hit, as political researcher Tyson Brody pointed out on social media.

Sure, it’s possible that someone registered a brand new account and made a series of unfathomably lucky bets, with no insider information, that just happened to pay off spectacularly.

But given the incredible timing, it also seems likely that the insider was someone either within the Trump administration or US armed forces — or someone else with advance knowledge of the attacks, like an employee at one of the media companies that knew about the administration’s plans before they happened, but chose not to report on them.

“It’s more likely than not that this was an insider,” Polymarket analyst Tre Upshaw told the WSJ. “That’s a lot of money to put in at that price, without a lot of news.”

As the WSJ notes, insider trading — placing profitable bets based on nonpublic information — is heavily regulated when it comes to the stock market, with major penalties for violations. When it comes to prediction markets like Polymarket, however, it’s the wild wild west, in part thanks to Trump’s own policy moves throughout his second term in office.

Earlier this week, Democratic representative Richie Torres introduced a bill which would penalize insider trading for all government officials on prediction markets, though the final vote remains a long way off — if it comes at all.

More on Venezuela: That Video of Happy Crying Venezuelans After Maduro’s Kidnapping? It’s AI Slop

The post The Venezuela Polymarket Scandal Is Looking Really Bad appeared first on Futurism.

🔗 Sumber: futurism.com

📌 TOPINDIATOURS Update ai: German scientists to make plastics with crop waste for

Researchers in Germany are set to turn green waste, hay and algae into fully biodegradable plastics. They believe such plastics can be used in medical products, car components, insulation and packaging.

The plan is to develop a cost-effective, energy-efficient technology for making innovative plastics based on polybutylene succinate (PBS) which are made entirely out of organic waste.

A new Junior Research Group at the University of Oldenburg plans to develop this method.

PBS resembles the conventional plastics

“The work of the new Junior Research Group aims to offer plastics made from renewable raw materials as an industrially viable alternative to conventional plastics,” said Prof. Dr. Ralph Bruder, President of the University of Oldenburg.

“The BMFTR’s funding approval also acknowledges our university’s outstanding research infrastructure in this field and highlights the potential of EcoPBS in creating an environmentally and climate-friendly circular economy.”

Researchers revealed that PBS resembles the conventional plastics polypropylene and polyethylene in terms of robustness and processability, with the major advantage of being readily biodegradable. However, scientists have yet to produce an entirely bio-based material that is fully recyclable, and the manufacturing processes are not yet suitable for use in the chemical industry.

Stable enough to be efficient in low-cost, low-energy processes

“For a high yield, you need microorganisms that are easy to grow and stable enough to be efficient in low-cost, low-energy processes,” said Walther.

In three sub-projects, the Junior Research Group will therefore investigate how to turn a biological substrate consisting of garden cuttings and crop waste into Bio-PBS. The team’s first step will be to optimise the fermentation process: in a newly developed biotechnological process they will assess how effectively the organic material can be converted into bioplastics using different types of microorganisms. A key factor here is that two different fermentation processes – Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation and succinic acid fermentation – will be tested, according to the details available.

It has also been revealed that the second sub-project will focus on “downstreaming” – the process of removing foreign substances from the converted material. The goal here is to convert the organic compound n-butanol into 1,4 butanediol, a bivalent alcohol and important raw material for plastics. With the help of simulations and machine learning they will look for ways to improve the material and energy balances of this process.

It was also highlighted that a new chemical substance is needed to remove contaminants and thus produce the first fully biodegradable BPS. The team has already developed a basic blueprint for this substance and applied for a patent. In the third sub-project it plans to further refine the technology. Another goal is to use the residues from the production of bio-PBS to generate renewable electricity and heat that can be used to operate the laboratory facilities. In the final step, the researchers aim to manufacture the first products for industrial use – for example, packaging and medical materials – using digital 3D models and fully bio-based PBS, as per the release.

🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com