End of the World

Doomsday Clock Set at 3 Minutes to Midnight

Humanity's failure to reduce global nuclear arsenals as well as climate change prompted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to advance their warning about our proximity to a potentially civilization-ending catastrophe 

January 24, 2015 |By Megan Gannon and LiveScience

A gigantic mushroom cloud billowed over Nagasaki, Japan, when an atomic bomb was dropped on the city in 1945. 
Credit: U.S. National Archives

The world is "3 minutes" from doomsday.

That's the grim outlook from board members of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Frustrated with a lack of international action to address climate change and shrink nuclear arsenals, they decided today (Jan. 22) to push the minute hand of their iconic "Doomsday Clock" to 11:57 p.m.

It's the first time the clock hands have moved in three years; since 2012, the clock had been fixed at 5 minutes to symbolic doom, midnight. [End of the World? Top Doomsday Fears]/.../