NEW WATERBIRD FOR

A ROBOT SHADOOF

HEN the present Ambassador to Egypt, Richard W Nolte, left his Connecticut home to take up his new diplomatic post in a few weeks ago, he had in his possession a toy bird with a red head, a pot belly, a green tail, yellow legs, big red boots, and a one-track mind. Once set within appropriate distance of an adequately filled glass, this mechanical creature occupies its time exclusively in wetting its beak, leaning back, wet­ ting its beak, leaning back, and wetting its beak again. The Ambassador told me he would put the bird on top of his desk in the Embassy and attach a one-word label; shadoof. He said everybody in Egypt would get the message immediately upon see­ ing the bird's head dip into the water. Those who are unfamiliar with the shadoof, the most ancient and primitive water-lifting device in Egypt (shown in action in the drawing at the left), may read the meaning of the "drinking bird" toy in a following RESEARCH FRONTIER report. Rather than anticipate that in­ terpretation, I shall use this introductory space to explain why I gave the only model of the bird that I had to Ambas­ sador Nolte. Certainly I acted under no illusion about the State Department's eagerness to take science seriously as a force in foreign policy. Science Attaches are scattered in U.S. Embassies around the globe (among them is one in Cairo), but Secretary of State has pointedly left unfilled the science affairs directorship of the department in Wash­ ington, the one place in American diplo­ macy where global effectiveness can be

RESEARCH IN AMERICA: NEW WATERBIRD FOR EGYPT: A ROBOT SHADOOF By John Lear 49

THE RESEARCH FRONTIER By Richard B. Murrow 51

AioRE PROBLEMS OF INSTANT MEDICINE By Joseph D. Cooper 56 49 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED focused. \() single Ambassador can couraged his oldest boy, Charles, to Jr., a member of the Japanese bar in move \'cr\ Fast or \ cry far against this travel the earth and learn b\' experience. Tokyo. Francis Herron is U. S. Consul drep-seaterl inertia at the center. Charles discovered in himself an ex­ Ceneral in \'enezuela, Phillips Talbot is W'itliotit expecting tlie impossible of traordinary ability to grub beneath the U. S. Ambassador to Greece. Granville Dick Nolte, it is reasonable to estimate surface of places far and strange. He Austin, John B. George, and Hoyvard liis potential b\' measuring his past per­ developed a remarkably broad peispec- Weidemann are State Department offi­ formance. He is a man of rare integrity. tive, from which he could see how poorh· cers. Carl Marc)' is chief of the profes­ The lock-like sense of justice in him lies most Americans were informed about sional staff, U. S. Senate Committee on unobtiHsi\"ely behind a silken screen of affairs abroad. Foreign Policy. Geoffrey Oldham, at the humor. He can be thoroughly pragma­ AVith his son John and Walter Rogers, University' of Sussex in England, is open­ tic, \ et I have never known anyone more a trusted agent of the family, Charles ing a yvhole neyv area of study timed to genuineh' willing to aigue a fair trial for Crane at the close of World War I began tlie next centui-y: science as a tool in na­ a new idea. to improvise methods of conveying tional development. David Judd, at the /. international understanding in depth. Arctic Institute of North America in λ^fH O else would have serioush' tried Their first invention, the Mutual News Montreal, girdles the earth yvith his as­ to establish a fellowship for on-the-spot Exchange in Prague, enabled prominent signment: the Middle North. John Spen- study of the moon? European journalists to write about cei' advises the Ford Foundation, David Nolte offered to provide a grant for Europe in American newspapers while Hapgood the Peace Corps. Peter Martin such a fellowship w