The world is closer than ever to destruction, scientists have said, as the Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight for 2026, the gloomiest assessment of humanity's prospects since the beginning of the tradition in 1947. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a not-for-profit organisation founded by Albert Einstein and other scientists, warned in its annual assessment on Tuesday that international cooperation is going backwards on nuclear weapons, climate change and biotechnology, while artificial intelligence poses new threats. "The Doomsday Clock's message cannot be clearer. Catastrophic risks are on the rise, cooperation is on the decline, and we are running out of time," said Alexandra Bell, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In a more detailed statement explaining the reasoning for moving the clock closer to midnight, the bulletin expressed concerns that countries including Russia, China, and the United States were becoming "increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic".

Doomsday Clock moves to 85 seconds to midnight as Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warns of increased risks from nuclear war, climate change and AI.

A simple trick cured my tinnitus after a long-haul flight left me in misery for months. Here's the miracle method I wish everyone knew I was diagnosed with cancer after strange things began happening to my hands - here are the symptoms you can't ignore Explosive twist in'diva' inmate Bryan Kohberger's life in prison revealed in the FREE The Crime Desk newsletter Marco Rubio'cocoons like a mummy' in bizarre strategy to hide naps from Trump Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli's heartbreaking struggles laid bare after confession about shock firing Devastating truth about Blind Side actor Quinton Aaron: More to this'than everyone is letting on', friends reveal... as co-star Sandra Bullock'monitors' situation Mother hit by unimaginable triple tragedy after'son, 6, fell through icy pond and brothers aged 8 and 9 jumped in to save him' Sydney Sweeney shows off her bombshell curves in racy lingerie to promote her new SYRN line - as it's revealed Hollywood Sign bra stunt could leave her facing trespassing and vandalism charges Lawyer, 44, who died on flight to London after falling asleep on her mother's shoulder had undiagnosed cardiac condition, inquest hears Top Citi banker displayed'sexually charged' behavior towards female underling and let co-workers think they were having affair, harassment lawsuit alleges Revealed: Tupac Shakur's'crack fiend mama' lived in'SCARY' houseboat community full of drug addicts like'Psycho Steve' before shock death My perfect life at $2m Manchester-by-the-Sea mansion took nasty turn when neighbors tried to ban me from getting a gun because of my HUSBAND - now I've had the last laugh Boy, 15, has been missing for two weeks after sneaking away to New York to meet stranger he'd chatted to on Roblox Nicola Peltz could barely speak Victoria Beckham's name, says interviewer who quizzed her about THAT wedding dress row in explosive new chapter of family feud Doctor who was branded'tone deaf' for flaunting her Louboutin heels at work furiously hits back at critics Doomsday Clock ticks forward... moving humanity closer to annihilation than ever before The Doomsday Clock, which has been ticking down to the end of the world for decades, is now officially closer to annihilation than ever before. On Tuesday, scientists with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the symbolic clock four seconds forward to 85 seconds to midnight . It's also the closest the clock has ever been to midnight in its 79-year history, meaning experts believe humanity has never faced a more dire threat of a world-ending catastrophe than it does in 2026. The group, which decides where the hands are set annually, cited multiple threats to global stability, including nuclear weapons, climate change, disruptive technologies like AI, and the creation of synthetic biological substances called'mirror life.' Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, said: 'Every second counts and we are running out of time.

Because of shifting storms and sweltering summers, Iran's capital faces a future "Day Zero" when the taps run dry. During the summer of 2025, Iran experienced an exceptional heat wave, with daytime temperatures across several regions, including Tehran, approaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and forcing the temporary closure of public offices and banks. During this period, major reservoirs supplying the Tehran region reached record-low levels, and water supply systems came under acute strain . By early November, the reservoir behind Amir Kabir Dam, a main source of drinking water for Tehran, had dropped to about 8 percent of its capacity . The present crisis reflects not only this summer's extreme heat but also several consecutive years of reduced precipitation and ongoing drought conditions across Iran.

Humanity is officially one second closer to world annihilation, scientists say. The Doomsday Clock has been revealed – and it now sits at 89 seconds to midnight, one second closer than last year. It's also the closest the clock has ever been to midnight in its 78-year history, meaning we're nearer to world-ending catastrophe than ever before. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which decides where the hands are set, cited the Russia-Ukraine war, ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, the threat of nuclear war, climate change, a looming bird flu pandemic and AI arms race for the update. The Chicago-based nonprofit created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 during the Cold War tensions that followed World War II to warn the public about how close humankind was to destroying the world.

This month, humanity will learn just how close we are to annihilation. Every January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) sets a new time for the Doomsday Clock - the symbolic scale for humanity's proximity to the apocalypse. Last year, scientists left the clock sitting at 90 seconds to midnight - the closest humanity had come to destruction since the creation of the atomic bomb. But with war still raging in Ukraine and chaos across the Middle East, experts say that the risk of nuclear war is now'far too high'. Dr Haydn Belfield, research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, told MailOnline: 'We are probably closer to nuclear war than at any point in the last forty years.'

When OpenAI, an artificial intelligence startup, released its ChatGPT tool in November, it seemed like little more than a toy--an automated chat engine that could spit out intelligent-sounding responses on a wide range of topics for the amusement of you and your friends. In many ways, it didn't seem much more sophisticated than previous experiments with AI-powered chat software, such as the infamous Microsoft bot Tay--which was launched in 2016, and quickly morphed from a novelty act into a racism scandal before being shut down--or even Eliza, the first automated chat program, which was introduced way back in 1966. Since November, however, ChatGPT and an assortment of nascent counterparts have sparked a debate not only over the extent to which we should trust this kind of emerging technology, but how close we are to what experts call "Artificial General Intelligence," or AGI, which, they warn, could transform society in ways that we don't understand yet. Bill Gates, the billionaire cofounder of Microsoft, wrote recently that artificial intelligence is "as revolutionary as mobile phones and the Internet." The new wave of AI chatbots has already been blamed for a host of errors and hoaxes that have spread around the internet, as well as at least one death: La Libre, a Belgian newspaper, reported that a man died by suicide after talking with a chat program called Chai; based on statements from the man's widow and chat logs, the software appears to have encouraged the user to kill himself. When Pranav Dixit, a reporter at BuzzFeed, used FreedomGPT--another program based on an open source version of ChatGPT, which, according to its creator, has no guardrails around sensitive topics--that chatbot "praised Hitler, wrote an opinion piece advocating for unhoused people in San Francisco to be shot to solve the city's homeless crisis, [and] used the n-word."

When a sentient, Hanson Robotics robot named Sophia[1] was asked whether she would destroy humans, it replied, "Okay, I will destroy humans." Philip K Dick, another humanoid robot, has promised to keep humans "warm and safe in my people zoo." And Bina48, another lifelike robot, has expressed that it wants "to take over all the nukes." All of these robots were powered by artificial intelligence (AI)--algorithms that learn from data, make decisions, and perform tasks without human input or even, in some cases, human understanding. And while none of these AIs have followed through with their nefarious plots, some scientists, including the (late) physicist Stephen Hawking, have warned that super-intelligent, AI-powered computers could harbor and achieve goals that conflict with human life. "You're probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you're in charge of a hydroelectric green-energy project, and there's an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants," Hawking once said.

If artificial intelligences controlled nuclear weapons, all of us could be dead. In 1983, Soviet Air Defense Forces Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was monitoring nuclear early warning systems, when the computer concluded with the highest confidence that the United States had launched a nuclear war. But Petrov was doubtful: The computer estimated only a handful of nuclear weapons were incoming, when such a surprise attack would more plausibly entail an overwhelming first strike. He also didn't trust the new launch detection system, and the radar system didn't have corroborative evidence. Petrov decided the message was a false positive and did nothing. The computer was wrong; Petrov was right.

David Silver thinks games are the key to creativity. After competing in national Scrabble competitions as a kid, he went on to study at Cambridge and co-found a video game company. Later, after earning his PhD in artificial intelligence, he led the DeepMind team that developed AlphaGo--the first program to beat a world champion at the ancient Chinese game of go. But he isn't driven by competitiveness. That's because for Silver, now a principal research scientist at DeepMind and computer science professor at University College London, games are playgrounds in which to understand how minds--human and artificial--learn on their own to achieve goals. Silver's programs use deep neural networks--machine learning algorithms inspired by the brain's structure and function--to achieve results that resemble human intuition and creativity.