The clock was reset to reflect a "more hopeful state of world affairs," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced at the New York Academy of Sciences and over a live feed on the Internet. Forty policymakers, scientists and Nobel laureates on the board of the Bulletin -- an online magazine that covers threats to humanity -- decided to move the clock after spirited debates about current trends in science and politics.

"We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons," the board said in a statement. "For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable."

This is the 19th time the clock has moved in 63 years. The creators of the Manhattan Project wound up the symbolic device in 1947 to remind the world of the consequences of abusing nuclear power. Since then, the clock has moved forward 11 times and back eight times. It came closest to midnight in 1953, when the testing of hydrogen bombs nudged it to 11:58, and moved furthest away in 1991, when it slid to 11:43 after the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The clock has been steadily ticking toward midnight since the mid-'90s, as increased terrorism destabilized regions of the world and India and Pakistan tested nuclear bombs.

 Internet News: Doomsday Clock set back by a minute

Source: washingtonpost.com