The Doomsday Clock: It's Five Minutes to Midnight - What It Means

If you think that a groundhog in Pennsylvania predicting six more weeks of winter is bad news, here are some really sobering tidings: the Doomsday Clock says the world is just inches away from oblivion.

The Doomsday Clock was created decades ago by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to indicate the threat to the world due to nuclear weapons. The closer to midnight the clock is, the nearer the world was to "catastrophic destruction." As you can imagine, the situation was very bleak during the Cold War years.

The clock was set to five minutes to midnight on January 17, 2007, being advanced two minutes to take into consideration not just the potential for nuclear destruction but environmental problems and potential disaster from emerging technologies such as genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

So, it's good to keep the big picture in mind. Having six more weeks of winter doesn't seem all that bad compared to the end of the world, now does it?