Palmitic acid World War II to produce napalm. The word "napalm" is derived from the words naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. Palmitic acid was discovered by Edmond Frémy in 1840, in saponified palm oil. This remains the primary industrial route for its production, with the triglycerides (fats) in palm oil being hydrolysed by high temperature water (above ), and the resulting mixture fractionally distilled to give the pure product. Palmitic acid is naturally produced by a wide range of other plants and organisms, typically at low levels. It is naturally present in butter, cheese, milk, and meat, as well as cocoa butter,
Non-proteinogenic amino acids a methylene group. Diaminopimelic acid is both used as a bridge in peptidoglycan and is used a precursor to lysine (via its decarboxylation). In meteorites and in prebiotic experiments (e.g. Miller–Urey experiment) many more amino acids than the twenty standard amino acids are found, several of which at higher concentrations than the standard ones: it has been conjectured that if amino acid based life were to arise in parallel elsewhere in the universe, no more than 75% of the amino acids would be in common. The most notable anomaly is the lack of aminobutyric acid. The genetic code has been