Better Hurry: Scientists Predict End of the World in Three Minutes Time

MOSCOW, January 23 (Sputnik) - The Doomsday Clock that represents a countdown to a potential political related global catastrophe was set to three minutes to midnight on January 22, the Washington Post reports.

It is 3 minutes to midnight. Watch http://t.co/8P3xZ3Vv6F pic.twitter.com/DK3WXmZ3Y6

— BulletinOfTheAtomic (@BulletinAtomic) 22 января 2015

According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – a group of experts that maintains the clock – the minute hand has been moved two minutes closer to midnight to express their dissatisfaction with the world progress on "unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals."  The group maintains that these issues "pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity," the newspaper adds.

ABC News points out that the Doomsday Clock has been adjusted a total of 18 times in its history, ranging from two minutes to midnight in 1953 (following the successful testing of thermonuclear weapons by the US and the USSR) to 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 (a show of optimism related to the end of the Cold War). The previous adjustment was made in January 2012, with the minute hand being moved one minute closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded by a group of University of Chicago scientists who previously worked on creating the first nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project. The Doomsday Clock, maintained by the group since 1947, originally represented only a threat of the global thermonuclear war, but since 2007 it also reflects climate change and any technological developments that may cause irrevocable harm to humanity.