Another giant leap for mankind

It's not quite on a par with the search for the elusive "God particle" but it is something scientists have been puzzling over for more than four decades: how do fleas manage to jump into the air, a distance of more than 200 times their own height?

Up to now there was only a theory, put forward by Dr Henry Benett-Clark in work at Edinburgh University in 1967, that the insects stored the energy needed to catapult themselves into the air in an elastic pad in a leg joint. Then there was a rival idea, put forward by flea expert Miriam Rothschild, who claimed the creatures needed to lie their trochanters, the lower parts of their legs (you didn't know that?), flat against the ground in order to create enough power to leap.

Thanks to high-speed recording, Dr Benett-Clark's theory has been proved correct. It turns out the fleas do indeed use their legs - and sometimes only their toes - to spring into the air. Dr Benett-Clark says he is pleased to be proved right, though he was always confident. He says the Rothschild theory was "about as silly as saying you could jump out of a chair by clenching your buttocks". So we rejoice that the new images have allowed scientists to get to the bottom of this, so to speak. Anyone with doubts can now be told to go away - with a toe-powered leaping flea in their ear.