'Doomsday Clock' Set Back 1 Minute

The infamous Doomsday Clock, a symbolic representation of the threat of the world's "catastrophic destruction," was set back one minute today. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the clock from 5 to 6 minutes to midnight, reflecting small but encouraging progress on the twin threats the scientists see to human existence: climate change and nuclear war, ABC News reports.

"For the first time, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material," said a Bulletin statement. "And industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable."
(More Doomsday Clock stories.)