The Doomsday Clock is a is a symbolic clock face, maintained since 1948 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Cairo (Illinois) . The closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is estimated to be to global disaster. The most recent officially announced setting — one minute to midnight (11:59 pm) — was made in 2013. Reflecting international events dangerous to humankind, the clock's hands have been adjusted twenty times since its inception in 1948, when the clock was initially set to five minutes to midnight (11:55 pm). Originally, the clock analogy represented the threat of global nuclear war; however, since 2001 it has also reflected climate-changing technologies and "new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrev