Jargon Watch: Lightfoils, Gelivable, Particle X

Lightfoils n. pl.
Nanoscale glass rods designed to fly on a ray of light. Like solar sails, lightfoils are propelled by the pressure of photons. Unlike solar sails, they bend light, giving them controlled lift like airplane wings. Arrays of lightfoils could someday power micromachines.

 

Gelivable adj.
Chinese Internet slang for "cool." Based on the characters gei and li, for "giving power," gelivable recently made news when it was used in a headline on the front page of the linguistically traditional People's Daily.
 
Exposome n.
The master list of toxins encountered by the typical human body over a lifetime, ranging from environmental pollutants to natural byproducts of metabolism. The exposome may be bigger than the genome, and it almost certainly has a greater influence on health.
 
Particle X n.
A supermassive particle theorized to be the common ancestor of all matter. Shortly after the big bang, it decayed to make everyday atoms as well as the elusive dark matter that gives galaxies most of their heft.
 
—Jonathon Keats (jargon@wired.com)