IAN Press has been producing richly illustrated, informative books, booklets, reports, newsletters and brochures for nearly a decade. With the emphasis on effective science communication, these printed materials produced by the talented Science Communicators and Science Integrators of the Integration and Application Network have been used by resource managers, policy makers and scientists to better understand and manage environmental resources.

On 24 Jan 2014, I traveled to New York City to meet with the Long Island Sound funders network. This recently formed group is pooling their resources to develop Long Island Sound conservation and restoration initiatives. They are a stimulating and thoughtful group of people from different organizations with different backgrounds, united in this effort to make Long Island Sound a better place to live for the 8+ million people who call the Long Island Sound watershed home.

This book was produced by the fledgling School of Marine Science, The University of Queensland at the outset of a rekindled scientific interest in Moreton Bay, its tributaries and its catchments, or watersheds. Previous conferences regarding the Brisbane River and Moreton Bay resulted in short conference proceedings books; Brisbane River: A Source Book for the Future, Future of Marine Science in Moreton Bay, and Moreton Bay in the Balance.

Last week, I attended a meeting of the Changing Course design competition in New Orleans. The Changing Course competition will stimulate innovative thinking about the future shape of coastal Louisiana, including possibly relocating the main channel of the Mississippi River below New Orleans - hence its name. The purpose of this meeting was to bring together the eight teams invited to enter the competition to review the issues at stake and answer questions about the competition.

'Environmental literacy' series … The seven environmental literacy principles for Long Island Sound are the following: • Long Island Sound is an estuary formed from a terminal glacial moraine (Long Island), flushed through tidal action from Block Island Sound, with minor exchange with NY Harbor. • Long Island Sound once supported abundant oysters, scallops, birds and lobsters with widespread salt marshes and seagrasses.

I attended the launch of the ShorePower Project at the Tidewater Inn in Easton, Maryland on 17 Jan 2014. It was a nice event on the topic of green energy for the Delmarva peninsula. The project is funded by the Town Creek Foundation, based in Easton, Maryland. Four municipal governments - Cambridge, Easton, Salisbury, and Snow Hill - are receiving funding to help them transition to green energy sources.

'Scientists Who Made a Difference' series … This blog accompanying the biographical sketch of Nicholas Copernicus looks at a selection of his writing as poetry and a selection of his scientific sketches as art. The 'Poetry' uses Copernicus' exact words (translated into English) in prose form, using the title 'The Earth Moves' to focus on the cadence and word choice.

'Scientists Who Made a Difference' series … Nicholas Copernicus was an interesting renaissance man who overcame the existing paradigm placing earth in the center of the solar system to the new paradigm of a heliocentric view that earth and the planets revolved around the sun. This perspective led to the Copernican revolution which occurred after Copernicus died in 1543 and published his book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres).

'Environmental Literacy' series … The seven environmental literacy points for Moreton Bay (Australia) are the following:

Scientists whose work has affected society are noteworthy for their abilities to a) produce good scientific results, b) effectively communicate these results to broad audiences and c) affect decisions and perspectives of society. These noteworthy scientists will be celebrated in this blog series on 'Scientists who made a difference'. Of the four pillars of scholarship defined by Boyer in 1990 (Scholarship Reconsidered: