Contact: Science Press Package American Association for the
Advancement of Science Carrying stuff on your head in the
Himalayas Click here for a high resolution photograph. If you
think hiking for an afternoon is a lot of work, imagine hiking
for a week while carrying a pack from your head that weighs
almost as much as you do. High in the Himalayan Mountains in the
country of Nepal, men, women and sometimes children working as
"porters" transport heavy loads of cargo on their backs up and
down steep footpaths to out-of-the-way places. For example,
porters carry goods for about 100 kilometers from the Kathmandu
valley to a bazaar in the town of Namche, Nepal near Mount
Everest. A group of scientists studied these porters and found
that they use their heads to carry cargo while using a small
amount of energy. The porters are even more energy efficient
than African women who carry water and wood on their heads --
the only other group of people to be studied who use their heads
to carry cargo. Both of these group