ScruffyVada wrote:
Pretty much the same sentiment. I thought it was odd she had to "present her findings" at a conference.

Because that's what you do in the academic world. It doesn't really matter what it is, there's a conference for it (I imagine this was some sort of animal behavior conference) and as a grad student, you are sent to present your research. Usually the funding for said research includes a specific amount of money to do just that. You sign up to present at these conferences, it's not an invited talk sort of thing. So the fact that she presented her research only means that she had enough data to make a 10-20 minute talk (1 hour max depending on the conference) and/or a poster, the fact that someone else found it interesting and worth reporting to the "outside world" is a completely different thing. Most of the stuff presented at conferences is interesting only to those in that specific field (and sometimes not even then), this research was considered worth reporting on by whoever reported on it. That's probably why we're hearing about it.