They do. It's often the only time they get to meet up with collaborators or other people in their field face-to-face. Scientific conferences are generally a few days in length, and most of the people going will either give a talk about their work or make a poster, which will hang in the conference venue for people to read. 

Conferences are an awesome opportunity to introduce yourself to people you might want to collaborate with in the future, meet some peers in a similar field, or get a chance to talk to that semi-famous scientist whose papers you've cited a hundred times but never met. Sometimes it's also just really nice to get out of the office/lab and get re-inspired by the creative research other people are doing!

Mustard and I are at the joint conference of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists and the Invertebrate Biodiversity and Conservation group in Fremantle, WA. 

The first day of the conference was a workshop on career development that was targeted primarily for PhD and early career researchers, and women in particular. It was run by the amazing Dr. Nerida Wilson of the Western Australian Museum, and had some great speakers giving us tips on everything from grant writing to balancing your work and your life. We had sessions on networking, abstract writing, mental resilience for working in science, and some suggestions for job applications and managing your career path. It was a pretty useful day, and a great opportunity to meet some other cool female scientists in a relaxed setting.

Tomorrow the conference begins properly!

Unsurprisingly, Mustard and I are still busy reading scientific journal articles and taking notes. We will probably do this for many weeks yet! Today we also joined a few societies that relate to our research. Being a part of societies or organisations is a great way for scientists to connect with other scientists in their field. Most scientific societies are a bit like joining a club - they might have meetings you can go to or a regular newsletter or magazine that you can read.

We joined the International Society of Hymenopterists. A Hymenopterist is a person who studies 'Hymenoptera' - the scientific name for bees, ants and wasps. 

All life is classified on the basis of how it is related to other living things. Wasps are classified in the order 'Hymenoptera' which is in the class 'Insecta' (the insects), which is in the phylum 'Arthropoda' (animals with their skeleton on the outside of their bodies, jointed legs and a segmented body), in the kingdom 'Animalia' (the animals!).