Dynamic filter keeps sandfish lungs sand-free
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چکیده
If you’ve ever found yourself struggling under a heavy pile of suitcases at the end of a holiday, spare a thought for the porters in some of the planet’s most remote locations. ‘When you start looking around, professional porters all around the world carry loads supported by their heads’, says Norman Heglund, from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, who is fascinated by the techniques that allow people to carry heavy burdens. Previously, Heglund had investigated how the Kikuyu and Luo women in Kenya carry water on their heads, and he discovered that they have a unique trick where they transfer their weight from one foot to the other extremely effectively. This allows them to conserve up to 80% of the energy from the previous step, enabling them to carry loads of up to 20% of their body weight with no additional effort. ‘Then we were thinking, who are the most famous porters in the world... and the Nepalese are reputed to be the best load carriers’, says Heglund, adding, ‘so we decided to go look at them’.
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