[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Is that from "Hydrothermal Reactions of Pyruvic Acid: Synthesis, Selection, and Self-Assembly of Amphiphilic Molecules", Orig. Life and Evol. Bios., 37/2, April 2007?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

It's from a paper at his NASA website here.

[metmom]

Hydrothermal experiments were conducted to study condensation reactions of model lipid precursors in aqueous media to form acylglycerols (glyceryl alkanoates) at elevated temperature under confining pressure.

Doesn't sound too spontaneous to me when someone has to set up the conditions for it to *happen*.