Question: what was the best invention in your field of work and why?

Michel Destrade answered on 9 Nov 2016:

A medical device called a shear wave elasticity machine. It uses ultrasound technology, just like the ultrasound used to see a baby inside the uterus of a pregnant woman. If you put its probe against an organ it shows what’s happening inside in real time on a screen. And then, the device launches a sound wave inside the organ, and the ultrasound picture screen shows you the wave travelling through the organ and tells you the speed of sound in that organ. From that speed I can calculate how stiff or soft the organ is (just like being measuring how fast a guitar string vibrates tells you how taut or slack it is).

That way I was able to figure out that brain matter is actually softer than jelly. What a cool result! (well I thought so anyway!!)