Amidst nuclear threats and political instability, the Clock of the Apocalypse is approaching midnight

This clock, is a metaphor of how close mankind is to destroying the planet, had changed for the last time in 2015, moving forward from five to three minutes to midnight.

Now it is two and a half minutes from the time of the world cataclysm.

The person in charge of moving the hands of the Clock of the Apocalypse, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is a group of scientists and intellectuals among which there are 15 Nobel Prize winners.

"The rise of strident nationalisms around the world, the comments of President (of the United States) Donald Trump on nuclear weapons and environmental issues" are some of the reasons why it was decided to move the minute hand.

They also cited "the overshadowing of the state of global security, accompanied by an increasingly sophisticated technology, and the growing indifference to scientific knowledge."

The Apocalypse Clock was created in 1947 and, since then, changed 19 times, from the two minutes remaining at midnight in 1953 to 17 in 1991.

Only in 1953, the "Doomsday Clock" marked an hour as close as 2018 to the end of the world.

The scientists directly cited President Donald Trump's nuclear policies as one of the reasons for advancing the clock. Scientist Lawrence Krauss also opined that the loss of confidence in the facts contributes to the growing existential threat.

"The Bulletin had never before decided to advance the clock by the statements of a single person", "But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter," said two of his scientists, Lawrence Krauss and David Titley.