English: A figure with two panels labeled A and B. Panel A has the chemical synthesis scheme for cyanohydrin and Strecker synthesis, illustrating how hydrogen cyanide, water, and ammonia can react with a ketone or aldehyde to produce hydroxy acid (top) or amino acid (bottom), along with the intermediate species between. Panel B is a graph showing concentrations of ammonia, aldehydes, amino acids, and hydrogen cyanide against time. Ammonia starts out 80M and is steadily depleted throughout the course of the experiment. In the first 24 hours, 400M hydrogen cyanide is produced, before plateauing. Aldehydes reach 1000M in the similar timeframe, before plateauing. Amino acids are produced steadily throughout the experiment to a maximum concentration around 5000M. The plateau in amino acid concentration occurs around 125 hours into the experiment and coincides with sufficient depletion of aldehydes and hydrogen cyanide.