The metaphorical doomsday clock moved two minutes closer to midnight last week by scientists concerned about climate change. The 68-year-old concept was developed to gauge how close the world is to destruction, with the end coming at midnight. When the clock debuted, the time was set at 7 minutes to midnight in the wake of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The clock was used throughout the Cold War to indicate threats to total annihilation. The clock now stands at three minutes to midnight, the nearest to the end of the world since a US-Soviet standoff in the 1980s.
