Another early beneficiary might be Carbo Ceramics, which sells ceramic pellets the size of grains of sand that are pumped into the rock surrounding the wells to prop open the tiny cracks through which oil and gas flow.

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Carbo Ceramics is a leader in making what's called ceramic proppant, which is the synthetic material, sand-based often, with chemicals that are injected into the fractured rock to hold open the cavities so the natural gas goes up into the piping that captures it.

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The game is played with 49 glass or ceramic marbles grouped together on a 2m-diameter concrete cylinder raised 7cm off the ground and covered in sand.

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In creating his "fungus accretion" vases, Simon brushed the rough surface of a ceramic vase with a clay-and-water solution until it built upon itself like a hand-dripped sand castle.

WSJ: The Wonder Twins of the Design World: Nikolai and Simon Haas | Designers