preon

Definitions

noun physics A hypothetical point-like particle, supposed to be a subcomponent of quarks and leptons.

Coined in 1974 by Jogesh Pati and Abdus Salam.

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But basically, it causes holes in the brain in cows, which is why we see pictures of cows first developing problems with their walking and eventually dying, as this particular disease attacks the entire central nervous system, the spinal cord and the brain, sort of an interesting thing from a medical standpoint, caused by an organism called a preon, which is different than a virus, different than a bacteria.

CNN Transcript May 21, 2003 2003
They took a cow in England to the vet who was acting funny, and they started to look for all sort of different things, slowly putting the pieces together, finding this unusual agent of a preon, a protein that causes infection, and then figuring out that most likely, it came from actually eating nervous system parts of another animal.

CNN Transcript May 21, 2003 2003
more recently, the fenix l0d and the quark preon show you what you can do on just a single AAA cell: more light than from a 4x D-cell maglite, and for a longer period of time. or a dimmer light that lasts for 10-20 hours.

Making Light: Making light under difficult conditions 2010