Chart showing changes made to the clock and contributing historical events. (SIN05)
Chart showing changes made to the clock and contributing historical events. (SIN05) Reuters Graphics

On Jan 22, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an online magazine that publishes content on public policy issues and global security, will announce if the "Doomsday Clock," a universally accepted clock face that countdowns to a possible global catastrophe, needs an adjustment. The announcement will be made at a news conference in Washington D.C. The international news conference will be hosted live on the Web site of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at 16:00 GMT.

The clock was created about 70 years ago by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The board of the magazine makes an assessment to see if there were any threats to humanity, after which they decide if the visual metaphor needed an adjustment, reported Live Science.

The hands of the clock have been fixed for the last three years at 5 minutes to midnight. There is a chance that the hands could be moved on Jan 23. It was said that if the hands of the clock were closer to midnight, then the world would be closer to a potential catastrophe that could end civilisation.

In 1953, the clock was closest to midnight at 11:58 pm. This was after the first test of the hydrogen bomb were conducted by the US and the Soviet Union. In 1991, the clock was set to 11:43 pm, after the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a bilateral treaty between the two superpowers, was signed.

The hands of the clock were seen at 11:55 pm in January 2012 because of the nuclear meltdown in the Fukushima power plant in Japan as well as the creation of the H5N1 influenza virus, a contagious virus found in domestic poultry as well as other animals. The next two years saw no change in the hands of the clock.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was created in 1945 by scientists from the University of Chicago. It was created with a mission to assist the public with information regarding dangers of nuclear weapons. In 2014, the scientists decided to come up with the Doomsday Clock which was illustrated for the cover of the magazine by Martyl Langsdorf, a painter. When it was created, the clock was set at 11:53 pm.

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