Doomsday Clock becomes digital

Considering the amount of fear in the world today, it is no wonder that the Apocalypse is on many people’s minds. On the top of the list of potential disasters are nuclear war, natural disaster, disease, and future elections. To account for the rise in world destruction pre-planning, scientists have renovated the design of the Doomsday Clock, moving from the face-and-hands model of the 1950s into the digital era of today.

The Doomsday Clock was first created by scientists following the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945. It displayed a countdown until “midnight” — the point of global atomic warfare. Over the years, the clock has been reset multiple times, and it currently is set at six minutes to midnight.

Chairperson of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Matthias Killa said: “The digital Doomsday Clock will do away with such unrefined representation.” The new clock will not only record changes in the worldwide nuclear situation down to the femtosecond, but it will also have an alarm set to go off whenever the world has been too peaceful for too long. There are rumors that it will also glow in the dark.

“In recent years,” said clock designer Phyllis Yee, “there have been many new threats that we need to account for. The clock is simply a more refined way to track... everything.” Calculating the distance to Armageddon obviously is largely influenced by the ongoing threat of nuclear war. However, other variables included in the new clock are international peace levels, the current approval rating of the American President, disease rates, ongoing military conflicts, number of living scientists, number of whales saved yearly, rate of incoming browser crash reports because of Flash plug-ins, number of people who think the current Homeland Security threat level is orange, speed of a Toyota car when it won’t stop, number of people currently on board the International Space Station, rate of volcanic eruptions in Iceland, number of licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop, number of children currently scared by monsters in their closets, number of people who think the current Homeland Security threat level is yellow, duration of sunspots, length of Pinocchio’s nose, current players on EVE, whether or not Punxsutawney Phil most recently saw his shadow, decibels of drunkenness on Brooklyn’s streets, count of remaining LOST candidates, ratio of Team Edward to Team Jacob members, veracity of Apple fanboys for the iPad, number of people who don’t know the current Homeland Security threat level, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber album sales, and a few others that Yee thought she might have forgotten.

Variable inclusion has been a contentious process. Theologians suggest more information focusing on, among other things, the number of sinners in the world and the validity of prior rapture predictions. Secularists, on the other hand, voted on a single quotient that weighed only the existence of God. The fight is expected to be long and dubious.

While there has not been a release date announced for the digital Doomsday Clock, tentatively named Doomsday Clock: Forever, it will launch before December 2012. Killa added, “We want to make sure it works, and think that would just be the most perfect test.”