Doomsday clock edging closer to midnight

The Doomsday Clock was set ahead two minutes reciently. "It is now five minutes to midnight," said Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "This change reflects the global failures to solve the problems posed by nuclear weapons and by climate change."

The move is significant because the scientists who are the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , has moved the clock only 18 times since it was set to seven minutes to midnight in 1947. The clock has been closer to midnight, two minutes away after the Eisenhower administration tested a nuclear bomb in 1953. But it is also a long way from its most optimistic setting, at 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Today's change was the first since 2002.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, named for its newsletter, was founded in 1945 by scientists who worked in the Manhattan Project and were concerned about the prospect of nuclear war. And the "Doomsday Clock" appeared as a graphic on their first newsletter and has since been adopted by the group as it's official logo.