The world votes to retire the leap second — and spare the internet a backwards jump

Since 1972, the world's timekeepers have occasionally inserted a leap second to keep atomic clocks honest with Earth's slightly wobbly spin — 27 times so far, and each one a small heart-attack for the internet's systems. This week in Versailles, the General Conference on Weights and Measures voted to end the practice: from 20 May 2027, clocks will be allowed to drift by up to a full hour before anyone intervenes, replacing the leap second with a leap hour that, on current estimates, will not be needed for more than 1,000 years. The change also dodges a stranger problem on the horizon — Earth has lately been spinning slightly faster, raising the prospect of a risky 'negative' leap second as early as 2029.