27 young scientists from Mexico to Italy, from England and Germany to Austria and France, followed our invitation to Obergurgl, Tyrol. It was great fun indeed (and very informative of course).

The first CSH Winter School is over.

These were five great days indeed! Getting up early admittedly was the hardest part—the morning lectures started at 8 o’clock already. Whew! But the long afternoon breaks made up for this. Time enough for skiing, walking or getting swallowed up by deep snow. Some hungry ones were chasing typical Austrian specialties (Kaiserschmarren! Käsespätzle!), while others got involved in literally hot discussions during extended sauna sessions, before they all came back together for the afternoon lectures.

With mountains and glaciers gleaming outside the window, the young men and women learned about network theory from à Vito Latora (London School of Economics) and microbial terraforming from à Ricard Solé (Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona). They were introduced to complex biology by Eörs Szathmáry (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest) and the theory of complex systems by our president, Stefan Thurner. Roberta Sinatra, currently a freelance scientist in Copenhagen, finally introduced them to the science of success.

After the truly delicious dinners, we then had the chance to experience à Constantino Tsalli’s humorous “fireside chatting” (without fire though—it was just too hot in that tiny room…). Thanks, Constantino, for skipping Samba and carnival for that!

After such long days only a few people were strong enough to stay up even longer and further discuss science, politics, and whatever else… the rest of us happily went to bed.