In a diminutive state seemingly so tightly packed with beachfront development, it is astoundingly easy to escape the tourist crowds and find your own patch of sand-based paradise.

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Ross, a Scot considered the dean of American golf architects, was given an unlimited budget for the Overhills course and 3, 500 acres of ideal rolling, sand-based terrain from which to select the 200 or so acres he would need.

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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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Pincus was ultimately forced to look beyond Sand Hill Road for cash at Boulder-based Foundry Group, New York-based Union Square Ventures and Avalon Ventures, a firm not well-known outside of biotech circles or its San Diego headquarters.

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Such nanotechnology involves engineering carbon-based polymer molecules, one-millionth the size of a grain of sand, that attach to fibers to wick away moisture and resist stains, water and static.

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