First, this research is designed to raise awareness among parents of the fact that swallowing Lego bricks is harmless to children, in order to reduce demand of Accident & Emergency teams, thus reducing waiting times and improving outcomes for people with serious emergencies. So it's worthwhile in its own right.

Second, even if it didn't have immediate impact value, almost all progress is made incrementally. All advancements of our knowledge are good, because we can never predict when a new finding will have an unexpected relevance.

This is great.

Could you please fix it the other way for my sanity?

The "pups" are wolves. You can either read it that the wolves killed her and the rest is animals eating her remains, or that she died peacefully before the wolves were the first to start eating the corpse. I think the emphasis is more towards the latter.

"If ye hadnae got yur wullies, Wheir wid ye be?"

Douglas Hofstadter has entered the chat.