The next month should see further action in the doomsday lawsuit filed in March - the one claiming that mini-black holes from Europe's Large Hadron Collider could destroy the world. The plaintiffs in the case, Luis Sancho and Walter Wagner, want the CERN particle-physics center to put the $8 billion project on hold until more questions about such a scenario (and others) are answered to their satisfaction.

The film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" gives the impression that "Big Science" is suppressing "smart new ideas" in America's classrooms - that is, ideas claiming that features of the natural world are so complex they had to be the work of an intelligent designer. The movie also reportedly follows up on efforts to blame evolutionary theory for much of what has ailed the world since Darwin, including Hitler and the Holocaust.

Once a year, Microsoft Research gives outsiders a glimpse of its high-tech frontiers: gizmos that transform your fingers into ghostly digits on the screen, or make you look like a Webcam celebrity ... viewers that let you unravel the inner workings of the cell, or explore the outer depths of the cosmos ... sensor networks that monitor how climate change affects glaciers in the Swiss Alps, or how the chemistry of life works at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Should science and politics mix? Some people say they should be separated - with scientists refraining from making policy recommendations, and politicians quietly absorbing the dispassionate dictums of designated eggheads.

In recent years, the holiday season has sparked plenty of reflection on the interplay between religion and science. We’re also heading into the prime political season, with science-related issues ranging from climate change to stem cell research. So you’d think scientific discourse would play a role on both those fronts this season. That’s not the case this year – and some of the people who think deep thoughts about science and society are wondering why not.

The latest roundup of the presidential candidates’ stands (and non-stands) on science-related issues such as stem cells, climate change and energy policy illustrates why a debate focusing on those issues is so needed … and so unlikely to happen. Some hopefuls have been ducking so much you’d think they were out hunting with Dick Cheney. Nevertheless, analysts have come up with bits of data that run counter to the conventional wisdom.