Doomsday Clock is now 89 seconds to midnight, the closest yet to catastrophe

A photo of the doomsday clock with its hands near midnight and the text "It is 89 seconds to midnight".

Humanity is closer to species-threatening disaster than ever before, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who today moved the hand of the "Doomsday Clock" to 89 seconds to midnight.

That's the closest the clock has ever been to catastrophe. The Bulletin, a nonprofit co-founded by Albert Einstein in 1945, has long warned of trends pushing humans toward civilization collapse or extinction. Last year, the organization set its famous Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight. This year, it ticked one second closer due to ongoing threats from nuclear weapons, climate change, bioweapons and infectious disease, and disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).