January 17, 2007

2007Uwe Nettelbeck, German record producer, journalist and film critic (born 1940)^[†]

Uwe Nettelbeck was a German record producer, journalist and film critic. He was best known as the creator and producer of the German krautrock band Faust and changed the face of German rock music in the early 1970s. He was also one of Germany's leading film critics in the 1960s.

2007The Doomsday Clock is set to five minutes to midnight in response to North Korea's nuclear testing.^[†]

The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents the estimated likelihood of a human-made global catastrophe, in the opinion of the nonprofit organization Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Maintained since 1947, the Clock is a metaphor, not a prediction, for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technological advances. That is, the time on the Clock is not to be interpreted as actual time. A hypothetical global catastrophe is represented by midnight on the Clock, with the Bulletin's opinion on how close the world is to one represented by a certain number of minutes or seconds to midnight, which is then assessed in January of each year. The main factors influencing the Clock are nuclear warfare, climate change, and artificial intelligence. The Bulletin's Science and Security Board monitors new developments in the life sciences and technology that could inflict irrevocable harm to humanity.