How religion and science intersect, or whether they can, is a subject worthy of a conference like Pop!Tech, a venue for dangerous topics.

Evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins, he of the Selfish Gene and Memetics, doesn't have much use for religion. He sees it as unscientific and dogmatic. The current attack on evolution – a theory accepted by most scientists as extremely well-grounded – by some religious groups has highlighted differences. The cover story in the November issue of Wired magazine ("The New Atheism: No Heaven. No Hell. Just Science. Inside the crusade against religion.") lays out his position.

But neither technology nor religion is going away, says Martin Marty, a religious scholar and ordained Lutheran minister. We have to find ways to have them live together, he says.

After hearing their presentations, I wonder if Dawkins may have had more in common with Marty than it seems.

Marty spoke of religion exploring mysteries, not with the idea that they are unanswerable, but in the sense that as one answer is obtained it only leads to more questions, more mysteries to unravel.

That seemed to be close to Dawkins's view of the scientist as humble explorer, always ready to give up positions outgrown when new evidence suggests new truths.

We live in a "middle world," Dawkins says, in which we experience only a limited part of reality. We see a rock as a solid object, not as mostly empty space with atoms whizzing around, because it has been a useful way for us to see it. We may have trouble getting our heads around quantum mechanics, the quite different set of laws that govern the world of the extremely small, because – as he puts it – our brains haven't had to evolve to confront those ideas.

In other words, he explains. if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. The universe is "queerer" than we can imagine.

What we call science and religion may be different paths to unlocking these truths that, for now, seem beyond comprehension.

How would you like to be invisible? In the Harry Potter way, not in the 'wallflower at a party' way.

It could happen. The BBC reports that Prof. Susumu Tachi, the inventor of an invisibility cloak, has a new project. He wants to make it possible to have see-through walls, so that when you're inside your house, it looks like you don't have any walls, but from the outside, the walls still appear to be there.

Actually, it's all done with a little legerdemain, and the help of a computer. Professor Tachi's cloak works by projecting an image onto itself of what is behind the wearer. A computer generates the image that is projected, so the viewer effectively sees "through" the cloak.

The key development of the cloak, however, was the development of a new material called retro-reflectum. "This material allows you to see a three-dimensional image," Professor Tachi said. "This material is the key to our technology." There are many potential uses of the cloak, ranging from espionage and military purposes to helping pilots see through the floor of the cockpit to the runway below.

There are questions about how it will be used, of course. We all want to make sure that such a cloak is not used for nafarious purposes. Criminals, spies, etc. would love to get their hands on such a cloak.

Good heavens, it might even prompt someone in Hollywood to make another "Porky's" movie or "American Pie IV." But let's not go there. In my case, I would be more worried about the see-through wall. I can just see my two-year old daughter, Peri, thinking she's outside and heading off on a tear to jump in our blow-up pool. Ouch.

My dog, Reggie, is extraordinarily cute. I know this because the ultimate arbiters of asthetics – teenagers girls – in my neighborhood 'ooed' and 'awwed' over her the other night. During the admiring session, one of the girls asked me about Reggie's breed.

I could have more easily answered a question about an effective exit strategy from Iraq. Reggie's kind of a, well, half this and half that, with another quarter of something thrown in for good measure.

So it was with some interest I noted a piece in the journal Science about a group of Seattle geneticists using DNA to "uncover the roots of dogs' family trees." The Oregonian reports that the researchers found such large genetic differences among breeds that "DNA markers alone correctly identified the breed of 409 of the dogs." They also discovered four distinct breeding groups.

The first group to emerge from that project is a set of dogs of Asian and African origin ... The mastiff and related dogs fill the second grouping [including German shepards for some reason] ... The third genetically similar group includes many herding dogs, such as the Belgian sheepdog and collie, as well as Irish wolfhounds, greyhounds, borzois and Saint Bernards. The final group included dogs that have been bred relatively recently in Europe, mostly for hunting – scent hounds, terriers, spaniels, pointers and retrievers.

Not only will this info help dog breeders sort out the real bluebloods from those Johnny-come-lately breeds, but the article claims that this research will also help scientists find genes that they say cause certain ailments that affect "both dogs and humans." And it could also illuminate how DNA affects behavior and personality. (Hmmm. So maybe that's why when my wife says 'fetch' I have this uncontrollable urge to, well, go the store and get a half gallon of milk.)

This study comes on the heels of a study earlier this month that reported "on an average basis, it's possible to match dogs with their owners, based on criteria of owner selections and purebred characteristics."

So not only do we act like our dogs, we look like them too.

Back at Pop!Tech. we were down for a while because a Blaster virus snuck into the wireless network and they had to close it down and clean it out.

Right now we're listening to geological science professor Peter Ward, who is talking about how long the Earth might live. And for him, the key world is ... methane. The largest extinction ever seen on the Earth came because of methane gas (forget that dinosaur killing comet). Ward says that the layers of the Earth are riddled with methane, beside what we're putting into the atmosphere ourselves. (The leading producers of methane on Earth, are cows ... and rice fields.) Volcanization helps release this methane, and we're seeing more of that. Ward believes that the Earth has seen its best days, and in about 500 million years, the atmosphere will be so hot, and full of methane, that we'll be more like Venus. Plants will die, about 20 million years later, the oxygen will be gone. And so will we. (Well, we'll probably be long gone to a new solar sytem by then, or as Ward says, we might "bio-engineer our way out of it.")

Life on Earth will then consist of a bacterial world ("planet yogurt, so to speak")

Closer to this time frame, Ward says that a global ice age would be a great danger than a warming period. The trick will be maintaining an equilibrium. Ward, getting political for a moment, said the next presidential election will be very important, because what's happening to our atmosphere and environment is far more important than what's happening in Iraq. He said he feels very strongly that the next president needs to support the Kyoto accords, or 150 years from now, the Earth will be a very hot place. Ward said Kyoto is not a panacea for global warming, but "it will buy us time."

Also, what happens in India and China will have an enormous impact on the global warming effect.