Tamreen Khan passed along a note about a new framework in development - jPOP Framework - that seeks to bridge the gap between Javascript and PHP:

The goal of jPOP is to have a simple framework that can let PHP developers enable Ajax in their pages without ever touching Javascript or even knowing how Ajax works. Only php coding is required, which helps by saving time and reducing code. Furthermore, I'm planning to tackle the huge world of Javascript frameworks and toolkits by wrapping them in jPOP plugins.

The framework (with just-released version 0.8.5) allows for the use of plugin modules and comes bundled with Prototype Windows and UIControls plugins, enabled by default. Check out the project's website for more information and tutorials/examples or just head over and download the latest version and take it for a spin.