It appears there are at least two theories in the works to avoid the consequences of a singularity at the inception of this universe (the Big Bang.) One of these is Hawking's No Boundary model which relies on imaginary time and is excerpted (from a lecture) in the above article.
The other one is the Ekpyrotic Universe theory. One of Physicist's colleagues, Burt Ovrut, is working on this model. It is in a very early stage, but for anyone interested in reading about it: 'Brane-Storm' Challenges Part of Big Bang Theory