News: Doomsday clock ticks closer to apocalypse

Pretty Lady

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The minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock," which indicates how close the world's leading scientists think we are from destroying the planet, remains at "three minutes to midnight," scientists announced in Washington, D.C., today.

Midnight on the clock represents "doomsday." The closer the minute hand is to midnight, the higher the chance of a global cataclysm, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the group of scientists who set the "time" on the symbolic clock.

The clock's minute hand is assessed each year, and the clock's time "conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making," the Bulletin explained on its website.

Last year, scientists announced the clock moved from "five minutes to midnight" to "three minutes to midnight" due to climate change and "extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity" by the modernization of nuclear weapon arsenals.

This year's time considered tensions between the United States and Russia and the recent North Korean nuclear test, the Bulletin said in a news release.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons. The scientists created the "Doomsday Clock" two years later in 1947.

The decision to move the clock's time is made by the bulletin's science and security board, which includes physicists and environmental scientists from around the world, in consultation with the bulletin's Board of Sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel laureates, according to the Bulletin.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/doo...ry?id=36524149

TaylorNation

omg just like Watchmen

Katy Perry

This is a thing.

Sazare

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the North Korean nuclear test

I thought that was made up

UnusualBoy

Sorry but that's kind of stupid and with stupid I don't mean the idea of the end of the world but the fact that they think that that "clock" means a thing.

J a y

I can't comprehend how the likelihood of catastrophe is comparable with the likes of Joe 4.

Strange though, I was watching videos on nuclear proliferation like two days ago.

joelovesmusic

Another doomsday scenario…

Costea

this makes no sense

PrettyHurts

this sounds weird and stupid and pointless

a fear mongering tea

Buffy

Just like they predicted Y2K would happen during the Millenium. They are wackos. Plus the world was already supposed to end during 2012 and yet that was debunked. Lol. They are obsessed with the end of the world not actually ending.

WalkingOnCharts

How can a clock go backwards and forwards in time??

Papa2Cyrus

DJ what you, what you waiting for?

Costea

what does a minute represent? How can a clock go back in time? what's happening?

getback

mess @ all the responses about not understanding what the "clock" is about

anw, we're already in the 6th mass extinction so even if it's not doomsday for us, it's already doomsday for the majority of animals and plants on Earth

J a y

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Originally posted by WalkingOnCharts

How can a clock go backwards and forwards in time??

It's a metaphor. It's not an actual clock. Eg: When the US and Russia were doing multiple nuclear tests, they almost killed us. There's many other examples but I don't exactly remember the specific names of the bombs, tests, etc. It's basically a measurement of our activity and what we're doing that's causing harm to our planet. This isn't like Y2K or December 2012 conspiracies, it's an actual scientific "clock" of the likelihood of us causing the Apocalypse. Main cause is climate change.

Costea

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Originally posted by getback

mess @ all the responses about not understanding what the "clock" is about

anw, we're already in the 6th mass extinction so even if it's not doomsday for us, it's already doomsday for the majority of animals and plants on Earth

we're not "already" in the 6th mass extinciton until 50% of all species die, which may or may not happen.

This clock makes no sense because that's not how clocks work. Why were we at 17 minutes in 1991? Did global warming not exist in 1991? Hint: it did.

Diarrhoea

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Doomsday clock ticks closer to apocalypse

Quote:

The minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock," which indicates how close the world's leading scientists think we are from destroying the planet, remains at "three minutes to midnight,"

getback

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Originally posted by Costea

we're not "already" in the 6th mass extinciton until 50% of all species die, which may or may not happen.

This clock makes no sense because that's not how clocks work. Why were we at 17 minutes in 1991? Did global warming not exist in 1991? Hint: it did.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
2. Read J a y's post

Terylee

Buy "Till The World Ends" on iTunes now!

Caprice

Quote:

Originally posted by WalkingOnCharts

How can a clock go backwards and forwards in time??

SCIENCEPOP : The reverse Einsteinian experience.