"We're actually in the process of making a synthetic face, " he said.

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Top Glove, which gets 80% of its sales from latex gloves, has been smart enough to diversify and, like its U.S. rivals, is making nitrile gloves, using a nonallergenic synthetic product, but in doing so it loses an edge: its proximity to its Malaysia's rubber plantations.

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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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