General Electric Co. is opening a new laboratory in Oklahoma, buying up related companies, and placing a big bet that cutting-edge science will improve profits for clients and reduce the environmental and health effects of the boom.

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"Once, everyone who sat in this room was a manufacturer, " billionaire dealer Lev Leviev said at the opening of a Gemological Institute of America (GIA) laboratory in September.

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"It's a good laboratory for us to see how certain films we would like to pursue would work in a New York opening, " he said.

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