Scientists have created ultra-elastic rubber from a stretchy protein that helps fleas jump high. They believe this rubber could be used as a mechanical material or in super bouncy balls, although it’s unclear if shoes made from it would allow us to leap onto rooftops with just one jump.
Dr. Christopher Elvin, a fundamental researcher at CSIRO Livestock Industries in Australia, explained that the protein resilin acts as an energy reservoir in the legs of insects like fleas and cicadas, enabling them to jump very high. With the help of resilin, honeybees can flap their wings 500 million times throughout their lives, and cicadas can produce drum-like sounds.
Resilin, a member of a broader family of elastic proteins found in nature, is also present in spider silk and is a component that allows dough to stretch.
Elvin and his team cloned the DNA responsible for producing resilin in fruit flies. They then introduced this DNA into Escherichia coli bacteria to create a soluble protein. “A batch of bacteria is enough to produce a large quantity of this stretchy peptide, which is then extracted and treated with light to create the final rubber product,” Elvin stated.
The product is described by Elvin as “almost like perfect rubber“.
Although resilin was discovered 40 years ago, Elvin’s group is the first in the world to turn it into rubber. He noted that this material has a lifespan and elasticity similar to that of natural resilin—it can stretch hundreds of millions of times without wearing out or tearing. The synthetic material also demonstrates significantly higher elasticity than polybutadiene rubber, which is commonly used to make very bouncy balls.
Elvin mentioned that the research team is exploring practical and commercial applications for this material (currently produced at a rate of 1 gram per week). In mechanical applications, it could be used for micro-switches—components that require continuous operation. Additionally, since resilin has a structure similar to human elastic proteins, it could be utilized as a biomimetic material to replace thinning arteries or spinal discs.
T. An (according to ABConline)
