Toward the end of every year, Time magazine highlights inventions “making the world better, smarter and even a bit more fun.” This year GE made the cut — twice.
Announced on Thursday, Time’s Best Inventions 2019 heralds GE Healthcare’s Senographe Pristina with Dueta, a mammography system designed with the patient in mind. Though mammograms are crucial for early detection of breast cancer, many women avoid them, sometimes fearing the discomfort of the exam. A team of women at GE Healthcare designed the Senographe Pristina to help allay these fears with the hope that more women will adhere to getting their annual mammograms. The technology offers the industry’s first patient-assisted compression device, the Pristina Dueta, which allows women to play an active role in their compression under the guidance of a technologist. And a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association also suggested that self-compression during a mammogram could be effective for women, without increasing pain or compromising image quality.
The power of invention
When it comes to cancer detection, knowledge is power; when it comes to the Haliade-X 12 MW, wind is power. In fact, the Haliade-X is the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine, with just one machine capable of powering up to 16,000 European homes. And this year it’s another Time honoree. A giant among wind turbines, the Haliade-X 12 MW comes equipped with blades that stretch 107 meters each, for a total rotor diameter of 220 meters. That’s just the right technology to meet the world’s renewable energy needs — and it comes at just the right time, as the global offshore wind market is expected to grow 15-fold over the next two decades, becoming a $1 trillion industry by 2040. A land-based prototype of the Haliade-X recently started producing electricity in the Netherlands, and the machine has already been selected for ambitious endeavors including the world’s largest offshore wind project: Dogger Bank, planned for installation in the North Sea between the U.K. and continental Europe.
Top image: The Haliade-X 12MW prototype started generating electricity in Rotterdam in November. Image credit: GE Renewable Energy.