By Hamish Johnston

Every four years the organization Science Debate sends a list of questions to the two main presidential candidates in the US. In addition to general questions about science education and public policy, this year’s 12 questions also cover issues such as biosecurity, preserving food and freshwater supplies, and how to manage the Internet.

This week’s Facebook poll is inspired by those questions, which I have edited down to the six issues that I think are of most interest to physicists.

Which scientific issue should be of greatest importance to politicians?

Science’s role in economic growth
Research funding
Science education
Climate change and energy security
Space exploration
Science-based public policy

Have your say by visiting our Facebook page, and please feel free to explain your response by posting a comment below the poll.

You can read the candidates’ responses here and, if you are a US citizen, cast your vote accordingly.

Last week we asked “Do you think the Large Hadron Collider will discover new physics beyond the Standard Model?”. A whopping 84% of you said yes, so let’s hope that there are at least some nascent signs of supersymmetry when the next big round of results are presented at CERN in December.