DOOMSDAY CLOCK STOPPED WHEN BATTERIES DIED, ATOMIC SCIENTISTS HAVE 'NO IDEA' HOW CLOSE WORLD IS TO ANNIHILATION

CHICAGO - The atomic scientists at the University of Chicago who maintain the Doomsday Clock, the timekeeper that warns the world how close it is to annihilation, revealed that the clock's batteries have been dead for an "indeterminate amount of time."

"We have no idea how close the world really is to annihilation," said a grim Dr. Noah Swayne, director of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that maintains the clock.

When the batteries were last checked, the clock's hands were at two minutes before midnight. Midnight represents the end of the end of the world.

"If we survive this, we're going to change the batteries on a regular basis," Swayne said