The Doomsday Clock is a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.
It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet.
When it was created by the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947, the clock's hand stood at seven minutes to midnight. Since then it has changed 22 times, ranging from two minutes to midnight in 1953 to 17 minutes before midnight in 1991.
It was last adjusted in 2015 when it was moved from five minutes to three minutes to midnight amid global perils such as climate change and nuclear proliferation.
More than a quarter-century after its brightest moment, the Doomsday Clock is again approaching the final hour. The Bulletin moved the clock 30 seconds forward to two and a half minutes before midnight, the closest it has been to Doomsday since 1953, after the United States and the Soviet Union tested their first hydrogen bombs. Find out more at Washington Post.