Framing major prebiotic transitions as stages of protocell development: three challenges for origins-of-life research

• Ben Shirt-Ediss,
• Sara Murillo-Sánchez and
• Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 1388–1395, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.135

• negative and positive feedback loops (autocatalytic cycles) that can take place within the internal water pool, the presence of closed lipid bilayers strongly restricts the free diffusion of the various soluble species involved, allows the selective passage of precursors and excludes water in limited areas

Formose reaction accelerated in aerosol-OT reverse micelles

• Makoto Masaoka,
• Tomohiro Michitaka and
• Akihito Hashidzume

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2016, 12, 2663–2667, doi:10.3762/bjoc.12.262

• reaction using formaldehyde-13C as starting material are indicative of the formation of ethylene glycol as a major product. Keywords: aerosol-OT; formose reaction; hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide; interfacial layer; reverse micelles; triton X-100; water pool; Findings The ‘formose reaction’ yields a

• about the Rw of AOT reverse micelles of w = 5. As can be seen in Supporting Information File 1, Figure S1, Rw is ca. 1 nm for water pools of AOT reverse micelles of w = 5. Even though a water pool of Rw ≈ 1 nm contains one formaldehyde molecule on average under the conditions used (i.e., at 200 mM