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Enlarge (credit: flickr user: Lars Plougmann)

Confronted with a baby—or puppy—most adults can’t stop themselves from dissolving into baby talk: “WHO’S the cutest? It’s YOU! YES it IS!” We slow down, increase our pitch by nearly an octave, and milk each vowel for all it’s worth. And even if the baby can’t speak yet, we mimic the turn-taking of a conversation.

This “parentese” is found across cultures, and babies exposed to more of it at home seem to do better at acquiring their home language. But it’s not all about instinct: a paper published in PNAS this week suggests that parents can be trained to improve their parentese and that this training gives their babies’ language a boost.

Learning to baby talk

Why does more parentese go hand in hand with language acquisition? It’s an open question. Recordings from parents and children in their homes show a correlation—the more parentese there is, the more likely the babies are to be a little more advanced with their language abilities. But is the parentese itself actually helping? And if so, how? Or is there another factor at play that boosts them both?

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  Welcome to Defexpo 2020, where a Mission Shakti missile is poking up from the X. [credit: Clément Cangelosi ]

This week, India's Ministry of Defense is holding Defexpo 2020 in the northern part of the country. The event seeks to promote India as a "defense manufacturing hub." In other words, it is essentially an arms bazaar.

One of the main exhibits of this week's show is a large display showing off a copy of the hardware used during Mission Shakti, the successful anti-satellite test conducted by India in March, 2019. During this test the country successfully fired a missile from the ground to shoot down a satellite at an altitude of 300km.

The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, characterized the test as a critical one for his nation, saying, "It shows the remarkable dexterity of India’s outstanding scientists and the success of our space program." Effectively, Modi was saying that India had arrived as a global space power. After the United States, Russia, and China, India became only the fourth nation to shoot down a satellite

Enlarge / Margot Robbie, seen here sporting a shirt that will help you remember her character's name through the course of the film. Oh, and she's also smiling while explaining how she and her cohorts may die within the next few minutes. It's on par for the giddy insanity that is Birds of Prey. (credit: Warner Bros.)

Slowly and doggedly, DC Comics' filmmaking division has been crawling back to relevance. Since the 2016 film that shall not be named, the results have been uneven, with Wonder Woman, Shazam, and Joker's mostly-thumbs-up results being balanced out by the stink of Suicide Squad, Justice League, and Aquaman.

It's been a positive enough trajectory to set the table for this week's stellar Birds of Prey, which appears to benefit from the DC powers-that-be telling its writer, director, and crew to go completely nuts. This bombastic, hypercolor explosion of filmmaking is exactly what the comic-film industry needs: equal parts slapdash and artfully arranged, designed to please anyone who wants more depth and weight in a "light," humor-focused comic film. I went into its screening expecting a killer performance from Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, which came true. I left surprised and stunned by the rest of the film's bloody, candy-colored pieces falling into place around her performance.

I shaved my what for this?

Let's start with the film's easiest point of praise. DC Comics' Bronx-accented scoundrel Harley Quinn steps out of the shadow of her usual criminal-clown boyfriend, and the results, in Robbie's nimble hands, rank at the top of the modern comic-film acting pantheon. Unlike her performance in Suicide Squad, where the character wavered between "lead" and "sidekick" status, her return in BoP enjoys a front-and-center placement, which the actor relishes.

Enlarge / Mario Kart is a safe standby for any couch co-op session. (credit: Nintendo)

With Valentine's Day on the horizon, we've overhauled our guide to the best couch co-op games, adding several new recommendations for you to share with a loved one.

Video games have gone a long way toward keeping us sane during our pandemic days. But while there's never been more people playing together, finding the best co-op games to play with a partner at home can still be tricky. More and more titles have (understandably) emphasized online multiplayer, leaving the market for quality couch co-op experiences somewhat thin.

If you and your loved ones are looking for some good times for the living room, though, we can help. Below, we've rounded up 26 of the best couch co-op games we've played, with options that should appeal to both hardcore and less experienced players. Whether you're eager for a half-hour session or a weekend-long binge, interested in a platformer or a twin-stick shooter, or playing on PC, Switch, Xbox, or PlayStation, our selection should have something worth your time.