Why do people in some cultures regularly carry heavy objects on their heads? It's because, biomechanically speaking, head-loading is an efficient means of hauling cargo:

Based on studies of women of the Luo and Kikuyu tribes of East Africa, researchers have found that people can carry loads of up to 20 percent of their own body weight without expending any extra energy beyond what they'd use by walking around unencumbered.

But don't strap gear to your head just yet. Head-loading only works well if you've been practicing it for many years:

The subjects in these studies began head-loading as children and had developed a peculiar gait that's one-third more efficient than the one we're likely to use.

For untrained controls who have not had years to strengthen the right muscles and build up spinal bone density, carrying things on your head actually requires more energy than using a backpack.

Link -via Joe Carter | Photo: US Army

Some ladies look best in a metalloid. Others prefer a more sedate noble gas. Only the most daring go transuranic. Whatever element works best for you, Etsy seller Ashley Mertz can provide an appropriate skirt.

Link -via Fashionably Geek

(Video Link)

It's just a tornado...eight to ten miles away from the wedding. In Harper, Kansas, people can deal with that:

"I had my mind on marrying my now wife," said Caleb Pence.

His bride, a native of northeast Nebraska who had never seen a tornado before, was much less at ease. He said that when he told her what was happening, she responded, "I don't want to hear it right now."'

Some of the guests who filled the 250 folding chairs checked weather reports on their cellphones. But otherwise, the 20-minute service — complete with a solo singing performance — wasn't altered.

Link -via Blame It on the Voices

A dozen humans were having a party late Sunday night in Boxford, Massachusetts when several cows charged them, drove them off, then drank up the beer that they left behind. Police came to rescue the precious suds before they completely disappeared:

“I saw one cow drinking the beer on its way down as it spilled off the table,” Lt. Riter reportedly said. “Some of the cows were also picking through the empties in the recycling bin… They just went in and helped themselves.”

The cows' owner came and herded them back home. The cows went peacefully, which is good, because cows tend to be angry drunks.

Link -via The Agitator | Photo: Boxford PD

Once again bringing Star Trek into reality, researchers at MIT have invented a means of injecting medicine into a body without a needle:

Now the MIT team, led by Ian Hunter, the George N. Hatsopoulos Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has engineered a jet-injection system that delivers a range of doses to variable depths in a highly controlled manner. The design is built around a mechanism called a Lorentz-force actuator — a small, powerful magnet surrounded by a coil of wire that’s attached to a piston inside a drug ampoule. When current is applied, it interacts with the magnetic field to produce a force that pushes the piston forward, ejecting the drug at very high pressure and velocity (almost the speed of sound in air) out through the ampoule’s nozzle — an opening as wide as a mosquito’s proboscis.

Well, that was a pleasant diversion. Now, researchers: get back to the holodeck project.

Link -via Technabob | Images: Paramount, MIT.

You may have been good beans, but now you're Bantha fodder. Food artist Jill of Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons made this marvel out of hummus. It has the shape of a Hutt, but not the gamey flavor of one.

Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

Ca$h Cats is a simple Tumblr blog with one theme: cats rolling around in piles of money. And sometimes guns.

Never give a cat a gun. Also, monkeys. That is, never give a monkey a gun.

Are we clear?

Link -via Everyday, No Days Off

Friendship is magic, or bacon, which is pretty much the same thing. DeviantART user BAwesome-BAcon rendered this pony in pork products. His gallery also contains images of Pinkie Pie made out of oatmeal and Applejack out of breakfast cereal.

Be sure to let us know in the comments if you would like for Neatorama to move to exclusively My Little Pony content 24/7.

Link -via Walyou

(Video Link)

The wave is staggering just to look at. Last November, professional surfer Garrett McNamara caught a 78-foot wave off the coast of Portugal. It was 1 foot taller than the previous record, thus establishing a Guinness World Record for the tallest wave ever surfed.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

All of the water on the Earth, gathered together, looks like just a tiny marble. The Jovian moon Europa has 2-3 times as much. Scientists think that beneath an icy surface lies an ocean 80 to 170 kilometers deep.

But it will do us no good. We are forbidden to land on Europa.

Link | Image: Kevin Hand, Jack Cook and Howard Perlman.

According to Internet rumor, a man in Japan used the recent solar eclipse to propose to his girlfriend. True love can move the moon and the stars.

Link -via American Digest

UPDATE 5/25/12: Commenter Hanks direct our attention to this page (translated) which shows how the photo was made.

You'll get shot down if you can't stay off your boss's radar. David Hsu's Desk 117, inspired by the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft, should make you invisible to casual surveillance. Or just look cool.

So, Miss Cellania, how soon can we get these for the office?

Link -via Link

A classic Vespa is a work of art, so an old one that can't run anymore should be put to aesthetic use. The people at Hotel Enfrente Arte took this '55 Vespa, tiled it over and converted it into a lovely flower pot.

Link -via Make

(Video Link)

The Apollo program considered many spacesuit designs, including some covered in plates of hard plastic, before settling on one design. This video by SciFri cleverly edits videos of astronauts testing the range of motion in different hard suit designs so that they appear to dance.

-via Swiss Miss

I hate to disappoint you, but it's not made out of chicken. It's actually vanilla and raspberry cake dipped in white chocolate. Miss Insomnia Tulip made this deceptively delicious-looking cake pop for the Evil Cake Shop.

Link -via Boing Boing