If you thought some guy in a lab was hand crafting your dental crown, think again.

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Mr. Tetro works in a university lab that does tests for hand sanitizers, including Purell.

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"All the technologies I'm exploiting currently in my lab and what I'm funding in other research labs are things that are close at hand, " said Col Hale.

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We would drop what we were doing, load up our equipment in our cars, and drive to their lab and lend a hand.

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"On the other hand, in Norwich City Council we've got Lab and Lib Dem at each other's throats, Lib Dems being entirely opportunists, " he added.

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That's an overly simplistic explanation for the six-sided display on hand at the MIT Media Lab today, which is quite limited in its current form, but could eventually serve an enormous variety of applications.

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In the sciences, on the other hand, the giant, well-funded research lab, owned by a government or corporation, has a surprisingly strong track record as an innovation incubator.

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