Scientists to announce “Doomsday Clock” time

The question: Will it move closer to midnight, predicting humanity’s end?

It’s now at three minutes to midnight.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded at the University of Chicago in 1945 by a group of scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons.

Scientists today will give their opinion as to whether the minute hand should inch closer to midnight or back away.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists cited increasing tensions between the United States and Russian Federation, two major nuclear powers, and threatening actions from North Korea including an alleged nuclear test, as part of the problem.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists chose not to move the hands of the “Doomsday Clock”, which tracks how close humanity is to a global catastrophe.

But thanks ever so much to the BoAS for giving us something else to worry about. However, it was not until two years later that the Doomsday Clock was developed, with midnight symbolizing apocalypse.

But the Doomsday Clock isn’t bound by time, and as such, can move backwards.

The security board and the bulletin’s science are made up of physicists and environmental scientists from around the world, in consultation with the bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, which includes 17 Nobel laureates.

The closest point it had been as of Tuesday morning was two minutes, in 1953, when the US and Soviets had tested hydrogen bombs. At that time, the scientists’ team claimed that the western civilization was just a couple of ticks away from atomic bombs lighting up the sky from Moscow to Chicago. This was marked by the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in parallel with the USA withdrawing from the Olympic Games held in Moscow.

The farthest away the minute hand has been from midnight was in 1991, with the end of the Cold War.

1998: The clock moves to nine minutes-to-midnight after India and Pakistan stage nuclear weapons tests.

Though the climate change agreements reached in Paris late past year are one of the few bright spots cited by the scientists, the agreements is voluntary and it’s too early to say whether nations involved will honor their commitments, Sivan Kartha, a member of the bulletin’s Science and Security Board and a senior scientist and climate change expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute, said at the meeting.

2015: The clock moves to three minutes-to-midnight.