DOOMSDAY CLOCK TO USE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS; WORLD ENDS MARCH 11
The Doomsday Clock, which gauges threats to humanity and is now set at just 5 minutes to midnight, will âspring forwardâ one hour in March to account for Daylight Savings Time, a decision scientists say will bring it in line with other official timepieces and unfortunately cause the world to end. Maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, the famous clockâs hands estimate the amount of time Earth has left before global destruction due to nuclear war, climate change and the like. Thanks to a campus-wide directive requiring all University of Chicago timepieces to be synchronized, the clock will be moved forward by one hour on March 11, 2012, meaning the hands will read 5 minutes before one in the morning, a solid 55 minutes too late for humanity.Bulletin executive director Kennette Benedict said he wasnât happy about the directive, and apologized for any inconvenience it may cause.âWeâve never used Daylight Savings before, and I tried to argue that we canât change this particular clock because of the danger, but you know how bureaucracies are,â Benedict explained. âI told them the world will end, and they were like, âAll departments who fail to comply with this directive will have their budgets reviewed.â Bastards.ââI swear the only things to survive the apocalypse will be cockroaches and bureaucrats,â he added.Although the clock has been adjusted 20 times since its inception in 1947, never has it been moved more than a few minutes. Bulletin board member Robert Socolow, an aerospace professor at Princeton University, advised people to stay calm and put the adjustment into perspective.âTime changes are always slightly disorienting. This one will simply be infinitely moreso,â Socolow said. âYou know how, every Spring, you set your clocks forward and then you wake up the next morning and think, âDamn, Iâve lost an hourâ? Well, itâll feel just like that. Except youâll think, âDamn, Iâve lost everything.â Including the ability to think.âFellow board member Allison Macfarlane, a professor at George Mason University, stressed the end could have been worse.âI was always afraid we would die in a plague or a firestorm or something awful,â Macfarlane admitted. âBut with this, we just move the hands and voila! Weâre all dead.âAt least thatâs what we assume will happen,â she said. âWe should probably research it further, but thereâs not enough time to get a government grant.â