From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants’ preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies 1 project, and follow-up CDI data were collected from a subsample of this dataset at 18 and 24 months. A total of 341 (18 months) and 327 (24 months) infants were tested across 21 laboratories. In neither preregistered analyses with North American and UK English, nor exploratory analyses with a larger sample did we find evidence for a relation between IDS preference and later vocabulary. We discuss implications of this finding in light of recent work suggesting that IDS preference measured in the laboratory has low test-retest reliability.

Early English readers of Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) annotated their copies of John Florio's (1553[?]–1625) translation with remarkable frequency and vehemence, creating a context within which printed appropriations of the essayist may be fruitfully examined. No topic intrigued these readers more than custom. Drawing from transcriptions of over 4,000 marginal annotations and situating the Montaignean borrowings of William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), and other English writers within a culture of active reader response, this essay treats the Montaignean account of custom as a case study wherein differences between manuscript and print appropriation may be investigated. Montaigne's reception in seventeenth-century England cannot be understood without scrupulous attention to both traditions.

The pressure dependence of the hidden order phase of the heavy fermion superconductor URu2Si2 has been a subject of intense research since shortly after the discovery of the compound decades ago. Applied pressure increases the critical temperature of the paramagnetic / hidden order transition and brings about a transition to long-range antiferromagnetism. The reported pressures and temperatures of these phase boundaries vary between studies: 4 – 7 kbar at low temperature and 12 – 15 kbar at high temperature. We review experimental evidence that the measured values of pressure and temperature are very sensitive to the chosen pressure transmitting medium. Recent x-ray diffraction measurements suggest that the relative position of the silicon atom in the unit cell is changing as a function of pressure. Recent neutron diffraction measurements show that the zero-temperature limit of the hidden order / antiferromagnetic transition occurs at pressures greater than 7.5 kbar.