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'Doomsday Clock': World Steps Closer To Annihilation

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The world just inched a bit closer to total annihilation.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at the University Of Chicago has moved the "Doomsday Clock" to three minutes to midnight on Thursday, citing the continued dangers of nuclear weapons, cyberhacking and climate change.

The group moved the clock up from five minutes to midnight.

The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists analyzes international threats, particularly nuclear arsenals and climate change, and decides where the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock should rest. The closer it is to midnight, the closer the world is to doom.

There has been only one time in which the clock was set even closer to doomsday. It has been set at three minutes to midnight twice before.

In 1991 the clock was set back to 17 minutes to midnight, after the United States and the Soviet Union signed the INF Treaty, which greatly reduced the number of nuclear weapons in both nations.

"The Doomsday Clock is an internationally recognized design that conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making," according to the Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists.

"First and foremost among these are nuclear weapons, but the dangers include climate-changing technologies, emerging biotechnologies, and cybertechnology that could inflict irrevocable harm, whether by intention, miscalculation, or by accident, to our way of life and to the planet."

The closest that the world came to destruction was in 1953 when the United States and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear devices within nine months of one another.

At that point, it was set at two minutes to midnight.

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