Those eager to put 2008 behind them will have to hold their good-byes for just a moment this New Year’s eve. The world’s official timekeepers have added a ‘leap second’ to the last day of the year on Wednesday, to help match clocks to the earth’s slowing spin on its axis, which takes place at everchanging rates affected by tides and other factors. The extra second would be added on Wednesday in co-ordination with the world’s atomic clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. UTC is the time scale kept by highly precise atomic clocks around the world, accurate to about a billionth of a second per day.
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