Scottish inventions and discoveries solely to the subject, as well as scores of websites listing Scottish inventions and discoveries with varying degrees of science. Even before the Industrial Revolution, Scots have been at the forefront of innovation and discovery across a wide range of spheres. Some of the most significant products of Scottish ingenuity include James Watt's steam engine, improving on that of Thomas Newcomen, the bicycle, macadamisation (not to be confused with tarmac or tarmacadam), Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the first practical telephone, John Logie Baird's invention of television, Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin and insulin. The following is a list of
Invention of the telephone reportedly published in an Italian-language New York newspaper, although no known copy of that newspaper issue or article has survived to the present day. Meucci claimed to have invented a paired electromagnetic transmitter and receiver, where the motion of a diaphragm modulated a signal in a coil by moving an electromagnet, although this was not mentioned in his 1871 U.S. patent caveat. A further discrepancy observed was that the device described in the 1871 caveat employed only a single conduction wire, with the telephone's transmitter-receivers being insulated from a 'ground return' path. In the 1880s Meucci was credited with the