Crumbling bridges and vulnerable buildings.

• Position: Infrastructure

Do the nation's buildings--both old and new--that were designed to avoid collapsing during an earthquake or other major catastrophe remain viable structures after disaster strikes? "Earthquakes are possible just about any place, not just in California," says Douglas P Taylor--president of Taylor Devices, which manufactures seismic dampers that protect structures during such events as earthquakes and high winds--who is the inventor or co-inventor of 34 patents in the fields of energy management, hydraulics, and shock isolation. In 2015, he was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame by NASA and the Space Foundation.

"New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a number of other places that you don't usually think about can have seismic activity, as Oklahoma recently did. If buildings, bridges, and other structures aren't designed to withstand the shock, they can endanger the lives of drivers and the building's occupants."

Taylor maintains that these structural problems are more widespread than most people realize:

* Bridge aging and deterioration. Across the U.S., 58,500 bridges are structurally deficient, according to a report by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. That represents about 9.5% of the nation's bridges. "That's definitely a concern for the people who use those bridges every day." From a technological standpoint, they can be fixed, but...