Be of good cheer!

Scientists say the world has edged closer to nuclear apocalypse in the past year amid a darkening security landscape.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BPA) has moved the minute hand of the symbolic Doomsday Clock from two-and-a-half minutes to 90 seconds to midnight. It is now at the closest that it has ever been. At the end of the Cold War in 1991 the clock stood at 17 minutes to midnight.


The minute hand on the Doomsday Clock is a metaphor for how vulnerable to catastrophe the world is deemed to be. The symbolic device was created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947. The BPA was founded at the University of Chicago in 1945 by a group of scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons.

Today, the group includes physicists and environmental scientists from around the world, who decide whether to adjust the clock in consultation with the group's Board of Sponsors - which includes 15 Nobel laureates.