Caltech Scientists Predict Greater Longevity for Planets with Life

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=28428

"Roughly a billion years from now, the ever-increasing radiation from the sun will have heated Earth into inhabitability; the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that serves as food for plant life will disappear, pulled out by the weathering of rocks; the oceans will evaporate; and all living things will disappear."

Scripps research team creates simple chemical system that mimics DNA

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=28427

"A team of Scripps Research scientists has created a new analog to DNA that assembles and disassembles itself without the need for enzymes. Because the new system comprises components that might reasonably be expected in a primordial world, the new chemical system could answer questions about how life could emerge."