Tech
Are bridges near you safe? This MRI-like scan may prevent disaster
Suyun Ham can’t take his eyes off a scanner. “Lower the sensors a little bit more,” Ham urges an assistant. Then a barrage of data floods in, filling computer screens for a diagnosis.
But Ham isn’t a medical doctor. Nor is his “patient” a living creature. An engineering professor from the University of Texas at Arlington, he is experimenting with a novel approach in bridge inspection.
Ham’s mobile-scanning system is part of efforts to make US infrastructure more heat-resilient. Unlike floods and tornados that can quickly destroy bridges, extreme heat is a silent killer that harms them over time, experts say.
“If temperatures are out of range, bridges can get damaged unexpectedly,” says Ham, who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where summer temperatures can exceed 100F (38C). “With our “MRI,” we can see what’s inside a bridge quickly.”
Bridge materials expand and contract in response to temperature fluctuations. While most are equipped with features to accommodate that movement, they were designed to withstand historically cooler temperatures, says Paul Chinowsky, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.
When temperatures hit a record high, bridges might behave in ways that engineers didn’t intend them to, he adds.Heat-swollen steel joints can impair the mobility of a swing bridge, making it unable to open or close—at least temporarily. Concrete also expands under heat. Once its expansion goes beyond a bridge’s original design limit, the concrete can crack, exposing it to moisture that can corrode internal metal components.
That’s an increasingly common scene around the world. In China, a concrete bridge broke in half because of brutal heat in 2022. That same year, London wrapped Hammersmith Bridge in giant pieces of foil to prevent it from overheating. And when the blistering sun baked Chicago’s DuSable drawbridge in 2018, its steel joints expanded and got stuck until firefighters hosed the bridge with cold water.
“Bridges are very susceptible,” Chinowsky says. “The hotter it gets compared to what typically it is, the more danger you have.”
‘A lot of headaches’
Hotter temperatures are baking US bridges at a time when their health is already deteriorating. The country has more than 600,000 bridges, almost half of which have exceeded their designed lifespan of 50 years, according to a 2025 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
With proper maintenance, many can last much longer, potentially exceeding 100 years, the industry group says. Still, about one in three bridges requires repair or replacement, according to an analysis published this year by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
Hussam Mahmoud, a professor at Vanderbilt University who has evaluated the structural integrity of about 90,000 steel-girder bridges across the US, found that many have aged prematurely, due in large part to the heat-accelerated malfunction of their expansion joints.
As the frequency and severity of heat waves increase with climate change, expansion joints, which connect two bridge spans, expand more often. That, coupled with the strain caused by debris or dirt accumulated in the joints over time, adds pressure to the structure, elevating the risk for a bridge to crack or buckle, Mahmoud says.
Although those defects don’t put a bridge in immediate danger of collapse, they need to be fixed to avoid further damage, which can be “a lot of headaches,” says Mahmoud.
With more than 4.9 billion trips taken across US bridges on any given day, bridge closures can take a toll on commerce and the economy, Mahmoud says. More damage also means higher maintenance costs. The US is already facing a $373 billion funding gap over the next 10 years to repair bridges properly, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.Heat-induced damage can also cause bridges to malfunction at a time when the free movement of people is needed the most.
In June, a swing bridge in South Carolina got stuck for hours due to sweltering temperatures and was unable to open for ships to go through, delaying rescue efforts for a fatal boating accident.
Drive-by inspections
For Ham, better bridge monitoring is key. “Just like it is difficult to heal a human patient with stage-four cancer, it’d be too late to repair a bridge when there are a lot of defects,” he says.Ham, who spent a big chunk of his college time inspecting bridges, learned the limitations of the conventional method firsthand. He used to tap the bridge surface with a hammer and listen for hollow sounds that could indicate problems.
That hammer later evolved into more advanced devices, yet the time-consuming nature of manual inspection remains largely unchanged, Ham says. The conventional method also requires a bridge to shut down some of its lanes for inspection, a big ask for places such as Texas, which has 56,000-plus bridges.
While federal mandates typically require highway bridges to be inspected every two years, Ham and others at the University of Texas’s Smart Infrastructure and Testing Laboratory in Arlington want to help increase that frequency by introducing a new solution: a drive-through inspection.
Ham’s machine—a trailer loaded with dozens of electronics—is hauled by a pickup truck. On a sizzling afternoon in July, as the vehicle pulled the machine across a concrete bridge over a stream bed on the university campus, the tools generate mechanical waves that can propagate through concrete.
Sensors pick up the resulting bridge vibration signals, while a GPS device pins down where each signal comes from. Meanwhile, ground-penetrating radars emit pulses to create images of the structure under the bridge’s deck, and GoPros videotape the surface condition. The end goal, according to Ham, is to collect a wide range of data that enables engineers to identify cracks, voids and other anomalies.
The machine scanned the entire 5-feet-long bridge within seconds. By contrast, it would take hours for inspectors to complete the same job using the conventional method, according to Ham.
“There’s a lot of surface damage,” Ham says, pointing to a number of bright orange dots and stripes scattered across the dark blue background of one computer image generated from the onsite scanning. He also spots a cluster of tiny cracks, highlighted by a red rectangle.
Ham and his team then use artificial intelligence to refine the analysis and filter out “noises”—irregular vibration signals caused by a car driving by during the inspection, for instance. The engineers report their findings to bridge overseers for safety assessment and future repair work.
“It is better for time and efficiency,” says Mark Burwell, a bridge inspection coordinator at the Texas Department of Transportation whose agency has deployed Ham’s technology to inspect dozens of bridges since 2019. As inspectors no longer have to work next to moving traffic on a bridge, the automated inspection also helps put humans out of harm’s way, he adds.
For now, Ham’s “portable MRI” is only available for bridge inspection in the Lone Star state. Ham aims to scale up its deployment. To make that happen, the engineers will have to first perfect the innovation.
There have been many learning moments, Ham recalls. Once, a rough ride knocked off sensors, cutting an inspection mission short. (The machine is now equipped with a lift that lowers and raises it to avoid obstacles on the road.) On another occasion, the software grappled with the complexity of decoding signals from a concrete bridge covered with asphalt patches.
To help the AI better interpret signals, Ham and his team have turned their laboratory into a manufacturing hub of artificial defects. There, engineers soak metal sticks in brine to emulate corrosion. They also drill holes in concrete slabs to mimic cracks. By applying sensors and radars to examine those artificial defects, the engineers can pair different signals with different types of damage.
Even so, the machine is unlikely to catch all the heat-induced problems, according to Ham. For instance, searing temperatures can stress a bridge, but the machine can’t detect it until physical damage occurs.
But data collected from damaged bridges may pave a way for future protection, Ham says. That’s because, by comparing the number of cracks in bridges built with different methods and materials, the technology plays a role in helping regulators determine how to design structures more suitable for a hotter world.
“We’re like a medical doctor,” Ham says. “We can help them make a decision.”
2025 Bloomberg News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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The latest brain-computer interface could help people recover from severe depression. Motif Neurotech announced Monday that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a human study to trial the company’s blueberry-sized brain implant that sits in the skull and delivers electrical stimulation to treat depression.
The Houston-based startup, founded in 2022, is part of a budding industry pursuing technology to read and interpret brain signals. While other companies exploring similar technology, like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Paradromics, and Synchron, are developing devices to enable paralyzed people to communicate and use computers, Motif is aiming to ease depression in people who have not benefited from medication.
The company’s device is implanted in the skull just above the dura, the brain’s protective membrane. It targets the central executive network, a part of the brain that is responsible for high-level cognitive functions and is underactive in major depressive disorder. The implant emits specific patterns of stimulation to turn “on” this network.
Motif’s device would allow patients to receive therapeutic brain stimulation at home. “Through frequent electrical stimulation, we think we can drive that neuroplasticity that creates stronger connectivity within the central executive network for patients with depression, so that they can get out of bed in the morning, call their friends, go to the gym,” says Jacob Robinson, Motif’s cofounder and CEO.
Courtesy of Motif
Electrical stimulation has been used for decades to treat depression, and Motif’s approach is just the latest iteration. Electroconvulsive or “shock” therapy began in the 1930s and is still used today in cases where patients don’t benefit from antidepressants. Deep brain stimulation, which involves surgically implanting electrodes into the brain, is occasionally used experimentally but is not FDA approved. A much milder form of stimulation known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, was approved in 2008. While it can be highly effective, it typically requires a lengthy treatment regimen of five treatments a week for six weeks.
A study from 2021 found that during a 12-month period in the United States, nearly 9 million adults were undergoing treatment for major depressive disorder, and of those, almost 3 million were considered to have treatment-resistant depression, when symptoms do not improve after at least two, and often more, antidepressant medications.
Motif’s device can be implanted in a 20-minute outpatient procedure without the need for brain surgery. It’s powered by wireless magnetoelectric technology that Robinson developed while at Rice University and is charged with a baseball cap that patients will wear when receiving the stimulation.
David Silver gave the world its very first glimpse of superintelligence.
In 2016, an AI program he developed at Google DeepMind, AlphaGo, taught itself to play the famously difficult game of Go with a kind of mastery that went far beyond mimicry.
Silver has since founded his own company, Ineffable Intelligence, that aims to build more general forms of AI superintelligence. The company will do this, Silver says, by focusing on reinforcement learning, which involves AI models learning new capabilities through trial and error. The vision is to create “superlearners” that go beyond human intelligence in many domains.
This approach stands in contrast to how most AI companies plan to build superintelligence, by exploiting the coding and research capabilities of large-language models.
Silver, speaking to WIRED from his office in London, says he thinks this approach will fail. As amazing as LLMs are, they learn from human intelligence—rather than building their own.
“Human data is like a kind of fossil fuel that has provided an amazing shortcut,” Silver says. “You can think of systems that learn for themselves as a renewable fuel—something that can just learn and learn and learn forever, without limit,” he says.
I’ve met Silver a few times and—despite this proclamation—he’s always struck me as one of the more humble people in AI. Sometimes, when talking about ideas he considers silly, he flashes a puckish grin. Right now, though, he’s deadly serious.
“I think of our mission as making first contact with superintelligence,” he says. “By superintelligence I really mean something incredible. It should discover new forms of science or technology or government or economics for itself.”
Five years ago, such a mission might have seemed ridiculous. But tech CEOs now routinely talk about machines outpacing human intelligence and replacing entire categories of workers. The idea that some new technical twist might unlock superhuman AI capabilities has recently spawned a raft of billion-dollar startups.
Ineffable Intelligence has so far raised $1.1 billion in seed funding at a valuation of $5.1 billion—an enormous sum by European AI standards. Silver has also recruited top AI researchers from Google DeepMind and other frontier labs to join his endeavor.
Silver says he will give all of the money he makes from equity in Effable Intelligence—a sum that could amount to billions if he is successful—away to charity.
“It’s a huge responsibility to build a company focusing on superintelligence,” he tells me. “I think this is something that has to be done for the benefit of humanity, and any money that I make from Ineffable will will go to high-impact charities that save as many lives as possible.”
Total Focus
Silver met Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, at a chess tournament when they were kids, and the pair later became lifelong friends and collaborators.
They remained close after Silver left Google DeepMind, which he did only because he wanted to chart a completely new path. “I feel it’s really important that there is an elite AI lab that actually focuses a hundred percent on this approach,” he says. “That it’s not just a corner of another place dedicated to LLMs.”
The limits of the LLM-based approach can be seen, Silver says, with a simple thought experiment. Imagine going back in time and releasing a large language model in a world that believed the world was flat. Without being able to interact with the real world, the system, he says, would remain an avid flat-earther, even if it continued to improve its own code.
An AI system that can learn about the world for itself, however, could make its own scientific discoveries.
The best iPhone charger depends on several factors. Are you topping off your battery on the go? Do you want to charge your iPhone as quickly as possible? Are you charging it overnight on your nightstand? The best gear recommendation is going to change with the situation. Luckily, the WIRED Reviews team tests iPhone chargers in the field all year long. There’s not a day that goes by that at least one of us is not assessing at least one iPhone charger. I’ve gathered up our favorite picks for every scenario.
Be sure to check out our related buying guides, like the Best Power Banks, the Best 3-in-1 Chargers, and the Best Wireless Chargers.
Table of Contents
The Best iPhone Chargers
Best Wall Charger for iPhone
This Anker charger is slick and has folding prongs so it’s easy to travel with, but the best part is that it can charge your phone at 40 watts (average is 20 to 27 watts). That means you can get up to 50 percent battery life in only 20 minutes. Not all iPhone models support charging this fast—it’s limited to iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max—but you may as well future-proof your gear if you’re shopping for a wall charger, even if your phone can’t take full advantage of those speeds yet.
Best Power Bank for iPhone
-Portable-Charger-Reviewer-Photo-(no-border)-SOURCE-Simon-Hill.jpg)
We do recommend the Anker Laptop Power Bank as our top-pick power bank, but if you’re only trying to top off your iPhone, this is a very reliable and neat-looking power bank. It’s svelte, smaller than a deck of cards, and can deliver 20 watts to two devices at once. Nimble also makes a slightly larger version, which has a larger capacity and can charge at up to 65 watts. Aside from the cool design featuring speckled colors and a lanyard loop, Nimble also uses bioplastics, recycled materials, and minimal packaging. A USB-C charger is included in the box.
Best MagSafe Portable Charger for iPhone
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Anker
MagGo Power Bank (10K) (Qi2)
This 10,000-mAh power bank can charge your device at up to 15 watts, but it’ll also charge older devices at a slower rate. It has a built-in kickstand and an LED display that lets you know how much power is left at a glance. It works in portrait or landscape modes. Be aware that it won’t be able to charge most phones fully more than once, but it’s hard to beat if you’re seeking wireless charging on the go. If you want a bigger capacity or faster charging, you don’t want MagSafe.
Best 3-in-1 Charger for iPhone
Belkin
3-in-1 Qi2 Charging Stand
The Belkin 3-in-1 can charge your compatible iPhone at 15 watts, plus your AirPods and your Apple Watch at the same time. The charging pad can be tilted to your preferred angle, including in landscape orientation if you want to watch a video or put your phone in StandBy mode. The USB-C cable is permanently attached, which you may or may not like. Check our best 3-in-1 chargers buying guide for additional picks.
Best 2-in-1 Charger for iPhone
Photograph: Louryn Strampe
Mophie
2-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand
I love a 3-in-1 charger as much as the next tech nerd, but sometimes they’re overkill. My Apple Watch battery usually lasts all day long, but I can chew through my older AirPods battery before my lunch break hits, and my iPhone battery might be depleted too, depending on whether or not I’m streaming Max Velocity off to the side. This 2-in-1 charger has been my steadfast desktop companion. Mophie makes another version that tops off your Apple Watch and iPhone instead of your headphones, which might be what you want if you’re rocking wired headphones or you’re making intense use of a walking pad throughout the day. There’s a 40-watt wall charger in the box—a rarity these days!—plus a USB-C cable that winds neatly into the base. It’s easy to adjust the angle of your iPhone as well, and I’ve found the base very sturdy. If you want to charge, but not necessarily all of the possible devices simultaneously, these might be what you seek.
Anker
Prime USB-C to USB-C Cable
This braided nylon USB-C cable has a durable exterior made from recycled plastic. The cable is rugged, with Anker promising that it can operate in temperatures ranging from negative 40 degrees to 176 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s backed by a lifetime warranty. It’s got a built-in cable management loop. It’s more than enough cable for your iPhone. Read our guide to the Best USB-C Cables for more picks.
Ugreen
USB-C to Lightning Cable
If your iPhone is still rocking the Lightning cable, this is gonna be way better than whatever shoddy cable Apple sent you. It’s durable and is Made for iPhone-certified, so you won’t have any problems getting it to work. It comes in 3-, 6-, or 10-foot lengths with a two-year warranty. Best of all, the exterior casing will stay intact, unlike what you’d probably get with Apple’s cables.
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