The Doomsday Clock has been set back one minute for the first time in its 63-year history. In moving the clock from five minutes before midnight to six minutes before midnight, scientists expressed optimism for humanity's future. This end-of-the-world clock, set up in 1947, is meant to convey how close we are to the end of the world via catastrophe caused by nuclear weapons or climate change, among other factors. The Haiti earthquake was not a factor in the decision. A news conference announcing the change took place this morning at the New York Academy of Sciences Building in New York City. The actual clock is housed at the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences (BAS) office in Chicago, Ill., and so a representation of the clock was shown at Thursday's news conference. The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when it was pushed forward by two minutes, from seven to five minutes before midnight. The change was meant to reflect two major sources of potential catastrophe that could bring us closer to “doomsday,” according to the board of “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,” a magazine focused on warning the world of the dangers that the invention of the atomic bomb helped to unleash.
