Since its birth in 1947, the world's eyes have been on the famous Doomsday Clock. This symbolic timepiece measures how close the world is to "midnight"—that is, a nuclear or environmental apocalypse. It is officially set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists magazine, a resource dedicated to educating the world about global security.

The magazine made news in 2007 when physicists collectively decided to set the clock ahead two minutes to 11:55 pm. The jump forward was in response to the continued dangers of ongoing wars, the worldwide increase in nuclear weapons, and the ever-growing threat of climate change. The closest the Doomsday Clock has ever been to midnight was two minutes, when the U.S. successfully tested a hydrogen bomb in 1953. The furthest it has been from midnight was 17 minutes, after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.