The Evolvability of Words: On the Nature of Lexical Items in Minimalism.

Work within the minimalist program attempts to meet the criterion of evolvability: "any mechanisms and primitives ascribed to UG rather than derived from independent factors must plausibly have emerged in what appears to have been a unique and relatively sudden event on the evolutionary timescale" (Chomsky et al., 2017). On minimalist assumptions the evolution of the language faculty must have involved at least three major developments: (i) the evolution of computational atoms, lexical items, understood as bundles of features, (ii) the evolution of a single, simple recursive operation that glues together lexical items and complexes of lexical items, and (iii) externalization linking the syntactic component of the language faculty to the cognitive systems that humans use for sound and gesture.

Total Biosynthesis of Legionaminic Acid, a Bacterial Sialic Acid Analogue.

Legionaminic acid, Leg5,7Ac2 , a nonulosonic acid like 5-acetamido neuraminic acid (Neu5Ac, sialic acid), is found in cell surface glycoconjugates of bacteria including the pathogens Campylobacter jejuni, Acinetobacter baumanii and Legionella pneumophila. The presence of Leg5,7Ac2 has been correlated with virulence in humans by mechanisms that likely involve subversion of the host's immune system or interactions with host cell surfaces due to its similarity to Neu5Ac. Investigation into its role in bacterial physiology and pathogenicity is limited as there are no effective sources of it.