"God made the world, but it's held together with duct tape." Or so goes a popular saying. Duct tape is one of the strongest adhesive tapes in the market and a popular source for jokes in the US and abroad.

Uses for duct tape include repairing military equipment during World War II, patching up NASCAR cars during races, temporarily stopping leaks, and mending cracked windshields. Duct tape was also used on the Apollo 13 to repair carbon dioxide filters; if duct tape had not been available on board, the crew would have probably died.

Duct tape is available as silver or a transparent tape, and is made with a mix of fabric and rubber. Uses for duct tape are not only limited to professionals, as homeowners can find hundreds of use for it around the house. Duct tape is known in Scandinavia as "Jesus Tape," a clear allusion to the tape's capacity of performing miracles. The only repair that is not possible to perform with duct tape is the sealing of air conditioning and heating ducts, which ironically was the use that gave the tape its name.

Duck Products, one company that manufactures duct tape, organizes a series of annual competitions daring people to think of unusual uses for duct tape, from creating prom dresses to decorating cars and trucks. People who come up with the most creative uses for duct tape get college scholarships and thousands of dollars.

Other common uses for duct tape include:

• Making small repairs around the house. You can use duct tape to fix a vacuum hose, hang Christmas lights, repair a taillight, and mend a window screen.

• Design and creation of novelty pieces, from handbags and belts to complete prom dresses, tuxedos, and iPod covers.

• The uses for duct tape are not limited to repairs. To cover a cut or scrape until proper bandage can be found, simply put a few squares of toilet paper over the wound and then use duct tape to cover it.

• To temporarily repair or extend the life of soccer shinguards, skateboard shoes, ski gloves, or hockey stick. Duct tape can also be used to repair tears and holes on camping tents.

• Duct tape also has somewhat inexplicable wart-quelling qualities. In cases where simple over the counter wart treatments are good candidates for wart removal, the daily application of a patch of duct tape has an equally good chance of producing desired results.