Jumping Jehosephat*

"Fleas use it to perform leaps that would make Olympic high jumpers green with envy. Bees use it to flap their wings without tiring.
Now Australian scientists have achieved a world first by copying resilin, the "rubber" insects employ to accomplish such athletic feats.
Future versions of the material could be used to make resilient
spare parts, including spinal discs and artificial arteries.
Chris Elvin, from CSIRO Livestock Industries in Brisbane, spent four years reproducing nature's "near perfect rubber". Dr Elvin said yesterday: "Nature had a couple of hundred million years of evolution do it. All insects have it. It gives them almost frictionless movement.
"Fleas have a pad of it in their legs. They squeeze and compress it, storing energy in it." When they want to jump "they release all that energy in a millisecond".
If humans had such pads they could leap 100-storey buildings... "
http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/fleas-giant-leap-for-mankind/2005/10/12/1128796590054.html

* http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/1/messages/2849.html