The Doomsday Clock — a symbolic device to signal an array of existential threats to the world since 1947 — was recently moved to 85 seconds before midnight, the closest it has ever been to midnight. And that was before all-out war broke out in Iran.
Created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock first represented a slow descent into nuclear vulnerability, with midnight standing as the nuclear apocalypse. Nowadays, the clock includes other existential threats to humanity, including global warming, disruptive technologies or the erosion of the rules-based international order.
