.WWF n.
The file extension for a document format that can’t be printed. Created by the World Wildlife Fund as a tree-saving alternative to the PDF, the onscreen-only WWF has been denounced by the paper industry as misleading and Orwellian.

Culturomics n.
The study of memes and cultural trends using high-throughput quantitative analysis of books. The field was born when Google released a database of the 500 billion words published in 5.2 million tomes over the past two centuries.

Pocket airports n. pl.
Proposed neighborhood tarmacs for local air travel. As small as a couple of football fields, the NASA-sponsored strips would serve fuel-efficient SAVs—autonomous suburban air vehicles—tasked with shuttling passengers to and from regional airports.

Longdaysin n.
A newly discovered molecule that slows the circadian rhythm of animals such as zebra fish, stretching their day to 34 hours. Tests on mouse cells suggest the chemical could reset our biological clocks as well, making Longdaysin a potential treatment for jet lag.

—Jonathon Keats ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )