Did you think that the end of the cold war meant that a nuclear disaster was a thing that only ageing hippies locked in the past need be concerned about?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists don't think it is, although, in fairness, they may have quite a few ageing hippies in their ranks. Anyway they have advanced their doomsday clock to 5 minutes to midnight. This is an advance of 2 minutes and it is the closest it has been to midnight (symbolising nuclear catastrophy) since the cold war. They site the following reasons for the advance.

• Nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea

• Unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere

• The continuing 'launch-ready' status of 2000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the US and Russia

• Escalating terrorism

• New pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

Click here if you would like to review the movement of the clock.