R) The Robertson Screw
In 1908, a travelling tool salesman named Peter Lymburner Robertson devised a screw head baring a square socket that reduced the chances of slipping with the torque of turning.
S) Synthetic Sucrose
Raymond Lemieux was an organic chemist who pioneered a number of discoveries in the field of chemistry, his first and most famous being the synthesis of sucrose, in 1953.
T) The Telephone
Although he was not the first person to come up with the idea, Alexander Graham Bell is credited with being the inventor of the telephone as he was awarded the first successful patent in 1876. Interestingly, had Bell’s lawyer been late to the patent office, American, Elisha Gray, who submitted his application at the same office just a few hours later, might now be known as the inventor of the telephone! In 2002, the US Congress recognized Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone; 16 years earlier Meucci had developed the same technology but could not afford the $10 to renew his “impending patent”.
U) UV Degradable Plastic
Nearly 70 years after the invention of plastic, chemist James Guillet stumbled upon this invention in 1971 while he was working with his students to solve the opposite problem: creating a polymer that could resist sun exposure.