During a joint press conference with representatives from the Department of Child and Family Services and the Parks and Recreation department, developmental psychologist Dr. Maia Chen was unable to conceal her obvious anticipation while confirming reports that a human boy, thought to be about three years of age, was found living in a wolf den.

“What happened to this child was tragic,” announced Dr. Chen, “no matter how fascinating it would be for a qualified professional to investigate how human development proceeds outside of the normally unavoidable taint of cultural influence.” 

Describing the meager living arrangements provided to the boy – known to the public only as R. J. – by a wild wolf mother and her three cubs, head park ranger Leslie Warren praised the hiker who recognized and reported the sound of a baby babbling. Dr. Chen, who until this point in the press conference had been literally folding her lips into her mouth so as to secure them in place with her teeth, interrupted to add, “-by ‘babbling’ he means any indistinct language-like noises, not necessarily canonical consonant-vowel sequences.” She shivered before adding, “We may discover that consonants don’t emerge without adequate modeling!”

Department of Child and Family Services spokesperson Perry McMillan explained that R. J. is residing in an unnamed medical facility until he can be fully vaccinated, treated for exposure-related conditions, and given an exhaustive battery of neurocognitive tests by Dr. Chen, during which time Child and Family Services staff will coordinate with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in an attempt to identify the boy. 

During Mr. McMillan’s comments, Dr. Chen was observed skimming through her friends’ Facebook histories, apparently attempting to locate one or more age-matched controls. According to sources at the scene, she could be heard muttering, “Didn’t Cindy’s brother have a baby about three years ago?”

Dr. Chen’s intensity and enthusiasm appeared to dim toward the end of the press conference when Ranger Warren responded to a reporter’s question about future safety protocols. “We’re looking into obtaining GPS tracking bracelets that families can rent for the duration of their visit to the park,” he said.

Dr. Chen sighed audibly before confirming in a monotone, “Yes, we must prevent this from ever happening again.”

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Attendees of the joint convention on Carbon Emissions From Unnecessary Travel and Preventing Disease Transmission say that they regret the organization’s decision to hold the gathering on a cruise ship after being stranded aboard the vessel for three weeks.

The annual convention, organized by the International Association of Uncomfortably Honest Academics (IAUHA) was slated to promote two themes always popular with professional scientists: temporarily ignoring the real and existential threat posed by carbon emissions and promoting contagion by touching an enormous array of both things and people from around the world. 

Hoping to provide a more authentic experience for conference attendees, the IAUHA had arranged for the convention to be held on an international cruise ship. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire convention will remain sea-bound for the foreseeable future.

“It’s just a bit of bad timing,” said Nigel Wither, IAUHA chair, “but we’re hoping we can convince the government to let us off the ship if we cancel the keynote speech on the importance of physically close networking.” 

Other IAUHA members are calling for new leadership, and felt that the disaster would not have happened had they chosen one of the other proposed themes.

“Janine Berkow really pushed for this year’s theme to be ‘Disadvantaging Female Academics by Making a Necessity of Travel Which is Unaccommodating to Pregnant and Parenting Researchers’ –especially after the IAUHA announced that they would not be providing childcare or lactation rooms– but the title was just too long,” said Mark Warsaw, junior member of the IAUHA conference coordinating committee. “Personally, I voted for ‘Normalizing Binge Drinking’ with the convention at a brewery, but I was outvoted.”

Warsaw shook his head. “Bet they wish they’d gone with my idea now.”

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