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The Natick research perhaps most coveted by designers--of underwear or SUVs or recliners--is also the most prosaic: its reams of data on soldiers' body dimensions. Claire Gordon, a biological anthropologist and senior scientist at Natick, says she fields up to 300 requests a year for her database of 133 measurements of each of 10,000 soldiers. In battle as in life, after all, fashion is nothing without fit. --By Lisa Takeuchi Cullen/Natick