The hands of the Doomsday Clock, which the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists maintains to represent the severity of nuclear catastrophe, will move this Thursday. In which direction, no one knows, but for the first time everyone can watch the change here during the announcement at 10am EST.
The hands have been set at 5 minutes to midnight since 2007, LiveScience reports, when they were moved from the relatively rosy 7-minute spot. Considerations for this week’s move include nonproliferation talks on the one hand, and nuclear terrorism on the other. The clock's closest approach to "midnight" came in 1953, when it moved to 11:58.
(More Doomsday Clock stories.)