- William H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (often misattributed to J. W. von Goethe).

Except for a mild awareness of the altitude which lasted for 20 minutes or so after getting off the plane, I like the city Denver. Well, at least the part of Denver near Hyatt Regency... The 16th Street Mall near the hotel was an ideal place for dining and hanging out. It's a street spanning more than a dozen blocks with countless restaurants of different styles, from American to Indian, from Japanese to Mexican. A free bus running up and down along the mall can take you to any place you want to go in little time. In terms of length and arrangement, it feels quite like Nanjing Road in Shanghai; and in terms of spectrum and quality of restaurants, it is like Time Square in New York. But by far, it's less crowded and dirty than those two. Apart from academic communication, the ability of reading and understanding English and Italian menu was another valuable gain I got during the stay at Denver

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It was really interesting to observe the many different ways in which professors interact with students, and to compare them. Just like debutants, students who understand the importance of networking want to contact with big figures in the field. The confidence of their own scientific potentials shatters all the shyness. They are the future of science. Professors, on the other hand, can choose to acknowledge this enthusiasm or to ignore it. Some professors have constantly activated nerves to detect these passionate newbies. Whenever they find one, they'll pay him a warm smile and an assuring gaze, which sends the message that "I know you want to talk to me, and I would love to talk to you too". Dr. Paul Manis from UNC is a good example. Other professors, in contrast, don't care to squander their words with any newbie whose name they don't know. They only talk to other big figures in the field. Of course, these are just different styles of being professor, and it's unfair to make a simple-minded judgment on which one is better. However, in such a field as biomedicine in which research is by nature a collective work, I feel a professor who treats all colleagues equally will have an edge over one that doesn't.

Talking to people with British accent is a little bit challenging for me. It's not because that I couldn't understand British accent. When I was in high school, I was really fond of the non-rhotic, pure BBC accent, in which it was possible to discriminate between "o" and "u" (unlike in certain types of American accent). One of our spoken English teacher was from Australia. So then, I was influenced by her, and proud of my Aussie accent. However, the annoying thing was that when I talk to British people on the conference, my accent was inevitably guided astray from my usual American accent to a British one, which to myself, sounded really funny. And that disturbed my concentration. Unfortunately, there are many good hearing labs in Britain, such as the labs of Susan Shore, Ian Winter and David McAlpine, to name only a few. Apart from that, British people, be they professors or students, were nice and good. In fact, a student looking guy with a British accent was the only person who could see through the gimmicks of my poster and find the many small glithces that I was afraid that people would ask about.

Critical peer review is one most important pillar of science. The underlying philosophy is that each scholar, regardless of status and previous contributions, is prone to intellectual flaws and human errors, and it is through the collective testing by all scholars in the related academic community that theories or conclusions get accepted and established. Therefore, for a scholar, the ability to ask the right questions is crucial. I also observed during the conference that during podium and poster sessions, in which the time to ask questions is inevitably limited, the ability to come up with the right questions in a very short period of time is even more important. However, both these two abilities (especially the latter one) are no easy job. Right questions come from a correct understand of what's being said by the presenter. Presenters can certainly judge the knowledge of the audience based on the questions they ask. When I go to posters whose contents are not quite in my line of interest, it's often difficult to me to follow all the details. Sometimes I totally get lost, but have to show my politeness and to disguise my ignorance by nodding and ask superficial questions.

In my opinion, criticism and defense is what makes sciene dynamic, interactive and fun. It's like an interesting game. However, because all researchers are human beings and have to maintain their own "faces" and show respect to other's "faces". Criticism isn't very likely to escalate onto the stage of confrontation in face-to-face interactions during a conference. That's where anonymous paper reviewing comes into play.

Asking the right questions in a short period of time can be extremely difficult, even for those most knowledgeable figures in the field. Before the presentation, I carefully prepared a list of about twenty questions people might ask me about my poster, along with the answer to each of them. These are the questions directly related to the weak points of my logic and assumptions. I probably wouldn't be able to stand the attack without preparation, in case people came by and asked these questions. Somewhat fortunately and surprisingly, most viewers of my poster didn't ask any of those questions. Is it because they didn't realize these glitches of my poster? Or, is it that they were aware of those glitches, but knew that they wound't have enough time to launch a full scale attack? It's hard to say. As Xiaoqin said to me during our talk, top-notch scholar should view their works with eyes more critical than those of the paper reviewers. No one can be as aware of the problems of a paper as the author himself, in the same way that one is the best judge of his own weak points.

Science is a field in which idealism works. This is a field in which you can do whatever research you like to do, as long as you can demonstrate your capacity of doing it and secure funding. This is also a field in which merit is judged by quality of research (absolutely in principle and largely in reality in the U.S.), not by background or connectivity . Here, there's no need to conform. You decide the best ways to get things done. Conformity often means mediocrity and creativity means excellence. The impetus of science comes from those few scholars who are brave enough to take the risk and sail into uncharted waters. This is where individual heroism works. Meanwhile, this is also an area in which teamworking is the key. Appreciating Eric's lifetime journey in the neuronal circuitry of the dorsal cochlear nucleus, one can't possibly deny the elegance and beauty of well coordinated human passion and efforts. These are the enlightenments I had during my talk with Xiaoqin and during Eric's award ceremony, which marked one of the pinnacles of his scientific career. For me, who always regards himself as an idealist in disguise, the Denver Conference was a milestone on his journey toward the maturation of academic confidence. It will be an experience worth the while to remember.