Why spend your free time vying for a Valentine’s Day reservation at an expensive restaurant when you could cozy up on the couch with some takeout and your new favorite game? These five co-op titles require that you and your partner (or pal, or situationship—I don’t judge) work together as you make some cozy, at-home memories.

Unravel

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5,  Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

Unravel is a beautifully detailed puzzle platformer. You and your partner will play as a pair of fuzzy Yarnys connected by a single thread. As you navigate a lush landscape, you’ll use that thread to swing over obstacles, pull each other onto platforms, and otherwise support each other, making Unravel a touching fit for an evening with the one you cherish most. If you fall in love with this title, make sure to check out its sequel, Unravel 2, which is said to be even more responsive and charming than the original. (Only the sequel is available on Switch.)

It Takes Two

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

I’m hesitant to include It Takes Two since it already gets enough hype, but it’s popular for a reason, so I’d be remiss to leave it out. This co-op adventure game requires that you and your partner move your characters collaboratively as you traverse toy boxes, wintry landscapes, and mysterious gardens—all while unfolding an incredibly heartwarming story. If you’re looking to get teary-eyed, this is the one for you.

Knights and Bikes

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC

Knights and Bikes allows for both couch and online co-op play, making it a perfect match for long-distance valentines. You’ll play as BFFs Nessa and Demelza, busy tackling puzzles, navigating hazards, and upgrading their bikes as they explore a colorful island with their pet goose. As with It Takes Two, you’ll have to work together to traverse complex terrain and solve some mild brain-teasers. Knights and Bikes’ charming animation style and humor will have you laughing in no time.

Overcooked! (1 or 2)

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, PC/Mac

The Overcooked! franchise gets a lot of hate on social media—like Monopoly, it creates more arguments for some couples and families than it solves. Both games test how well you communicate and work together, especially in frantic, time-sensitive scenarios. Overcooked! 1 and 2 are great for duos skilled in the communication and banter departments, but if you’re not quite there yet, you might be best leaving these for an occasion that isn’t Valentine’s Day.

Snipperclips

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

Snipperclips is a good fit for couples who are short on time or in need of a quieter gaming experience, as each of the game’s at-your-own-pace visual puzzles are just a few minutes long. That said, these puzzles are like potato chips—it’s hard to stop at just one! You’ll snip away at each other’s characters and hop across sheets of grid paper to launch balloons, shoot hoops, and complete other tasks in this 2D title.

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(Image: Vladislav Nikonov/Unsplash)You probably know someone with a peanut allergy—or maybe you’re allergic. More than one in every 100 people suffer from a severe peanut allergy, requiring that they take great care to avoid what could be a deadly legume. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if folks with peanut intolerances could safely let their guard down or even enjoy what was once too chancy?

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have successfully blocked peanut-related allergic reactions in mice, suggesting that humans might someday bask in similar dietary freedom. By giving the mice a custom covalent heterobivalent inhibitor (cHBI), chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Başar Bilgiçer and his colleagues were able to prevent the onset of potentially fatal reactions.

Bilgiçer’s team originally created the cHBI in 2019 when they began researching solutions to peanut allergies. Peanut allergies are the product of peanut proteins binding with immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies atop immune cells. This prompts the immune cells to produce (among other things) histamines, which are behind most allergic reactions. As of 2019, no medications existed that prevented or mitigated this process. This inspired Bilgiçer to lead the development of an inhibitor that would prevent peanut proteins from binding with IgE.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the researchers transplanted human immune cells into test mice. They then gave each mouse a single dose of cHBI before injecting peanut proteins into the rodents’ bloodstreams. Bilgiçer’s team found that cHBI prevented allergic reactions for more than two weeks. Interestingly, administering cHBI after the onset of an allergic reaction appeared to stop that reaction in its tracks, preventing both fatal anaphylaxis and milder symptoms.

Should Bilgiçer’s cHBI prove equally useful in humans (and not just a “humanized mouse model”), it could bump peanuts down from their position as the most deadly food-based allergen. It could also serve as a platform upon which researchers can build other allergic reaction inhibitors, thus diminishing the effects of intolerances to tree nuts, shellfish, and other common allergens. Don’t take off that allergen bracelet just yet, though; the team is working on moving their research to a preclinical trial, which means it’ll be a bit before we know how effective their cHBI is in people.

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(Image: Misael Moreno/Unsplash)When it comes to treating cancer, groups of synergistic drugs are often more effective than standalone drugs. But coordinating the delivery of multiple drugs is easier said than done. Drugs’ molecular properties tend to differ, making it difficult to ensure that pharmaceuticals make it to their destinations without losing effectiveness along the way. An all-new multidrug nanoparticle might be the solution. A team of researchers at MIT has created a “molecular bottlebrush” capable of delivering any number of drugs at the same time.

Drug-loaded nanoparticles—or ultrafine particles ranging from one to 100 nanometers in diameter—prevent treatments from being released prematurely, which ensures that the drug reaches its destination before beginning to do its job. This means nanoparticles carrying cancer treatments can collect at the tumor site, facilitating the most effective treatment possible. There is, of course, one caveat: Only a few cancer-treating nanoparticles have been approved by the FDA, and only one of those is capable of carrying more than one drug.

MIT’s molecular bottlebrush, detailed Thursday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, challenges that. Chemists start by inactivating drug molecules by binding and mixing them with polymers. The result is a central “backbone” with several spokes. All it takes to activate the inactivated drugs sitting along the backbone is a break in one of those spokes. This unique design is what enables the new nanoparticle to carry (and thus deliver) multiple drugs at a time.

The team tested the molecular bottlebrush in mice with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer that targets the body’s plasma cells. They loaded the nanoparticle with just one drug: bortezomib. On its own, bortezomib usually gets stuck in the body’s red blood cells; by hitching a ride on the bottlebrush, however, bortezomib accumulated in the targeted plasma cells.

The researchers then experimented with multidrug combinations. They tested three-drug bottlebrush arrangements on two mouse models of multiple myeloma and found that the combinations slowed or stopped tumor growth far more effectively than the same drugs delivered sans bottlebrush. The team even found that solo bortezomib, which is currently approved only for blood cancers and not solid tumors, was highly effective at inhibiting tumor growth in high doses.

Through their startup Window Therapeutics, the researchers hope to develop their nanoparticle to the point that it can be tested through clinical trials.

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(Credit: AndreyPopov/Getty Images)We may have robot frycooks, robot bartenders, and even robot shoe-shiners, but robot lawyers are apparently where we draw the line. Human lawyers have prevented an artificial intelligence-equipped robot from appearing in court, where it was scheduled to fight a defendant’s speeding ticket.

The “robot lawyer” is the latest creation from DoNotPay, a New York startup known for its AI chatbot of the same name. Last year our colleagues at PCMag reported that DoNotPay had successfully negotiated down people’s Comcast bills and canceled their forgotten free trials. Since then, the chatbot has expanded to help users block spam texts, file corporate complaints, renew their Florida driver’s licenses, and otherwise take care of tasks that would be annoying or burdensome without DoNotPay’s help.

But it appears DoNotPay has taken things a bit too far. Shortly after the startup added legal capabilities to its chatbot’s feature set, a user “hired” the bot to fight their speeding ticket. On Feb. 22, the bot was scheduled to “appear” in court by way of smart glasses worn on the human defendant’s head. These glasses would record court proceedings while using text generators like ChatGPT and DaVinci to dictate responses into the defendant’s ear. According to NPR, the appearance was set to become the first-ever AI-powered legal defense.

As human lawyers found out about DoNotPay, however, the chatbot and its defendant were required to revise their plan. DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder told NPR that multiple state bar associations threatened the startup, even going so far as to mention a district attorney’s office referral, prosecution, and prison time. Such consequences would be made possible by rules prohibiting unauthorized law practice in the courtroom. Eventually, Browder said, the threat of criminal charges forced the startup to wave a white flag.

Unfortunately for Browder, this isn’t the end of DoNotPay’s legal scrutiny. Several state bar associations are now investigating the startup and its chatbot for the same reason as above. Browder reportedly believes in AI’s eventual place in the courtroom, saying it could someday provide affordable legal representation for people who wouldn’t be able to swing a human attorney’s fees. But if DoNotPay hopes to make robot lawyers a real thing, it’ll have to rethink its strategy: It’s illegal to record audio during a live legal proceeding in federal and some state courts, which collapses the whole smart glasses technique.

DoNotPay still lists multiple legal disputes on its website, indicating that the startup might have faith in its ability to escape from these probes unscathed.

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