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Scotch tape was invented in 1930 by banjo-playing 3M engineer Richard Drew. Scotch tape was the world's first transparent adhesive tape. Drew also invented the first masking tape in 1925—a 2-inch-wide tan paper tape with a pressure sensitive adhesive backing.

Associated Press Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape. It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers. Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study...

Sticky tapes are always useful to have, but did you know they do more than just … stick? Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found out that they also have amazing properties, being able to generate enough X-rays to take an X-ray picture. The scientists explained in the journal Nature how they got confirmation that scotch tapes are indeed capable of producing X-rays.