"It used to be more taboo, and there were some questions of business getting in the way of pure science, " says Marjorie Hunter, director of the University of Rochester's Office of Technology Transfer.

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The price makes the 14 May launch the single most valuable flight for pure science in the history of European space activity.

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In pure science, the institution is a success.

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The specter of corporate exploitation of pure science loomed large.

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"It is pure science fiction to say we can change the rate of aging in an organism as complex as ours, " argues Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at Boston University Medical Center who studies centenarians.

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Of course, the fact that science has not, to date, shown conclusively that chocolate - pure or impure, in bar-form or egg-shaped - causes acne is unlikely to stop adults using the threat of spots to try and slow down their children's intake.

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The rat analogy comes from modern economics, a discipline that classes itself as lab science, precious and pure.

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