If you are reading this then the recent research by Brian Pasley and colleagues in which speech sounds are reconstructed from measured brain activity has probably already come onto your neuro-radar. It's certainly drawn a lot of media coverage, with some great commentaries including this from Mo Costandi in the Guardian.

Hey, you got simulation in my roleplay! Hey, you got roleplay in my simulation! Wait, it's two great tastes that taste great together!

Thus my students surprised me when they tossed in a role-based stance into what I thought was a straightforward systems engineering analysis. Herein lies the tale.

Background: I'm teaching a course in space mission operations that focuses heavily on scenario analysis. I presented them with a case where they had to balance risk versus success for a space-borne telescope. In rocket science, risk is never something you can eliminate, no matter how much money or resources you toss at it. That's part of what makes it rocket science. Risk can be reduced, mitigated, or even accepted, but never eliminated.

Peru is at the cutting edge, the forefront--nay, Peru is a veritable trendsetter, trailblazer, and spearheader--because Peru, alone in the world, has decided to set a quota for Humboldt squid.

Before you go off in a huff about how ridiculous I'm being*, let me explain why this is kind of a big deal. First, the Humboldt squid fishery is the biggest squid--the biggest invertebrate--fishery in the world. Second, no single country (or group of countries, for that matter) has ever set a quota for Humboldt squid before. That means fishermen have, by and large, been free to catch as many as they can.

Bacteria can multiply rapidly, potentially doubling every 20 minutes in ideal conditions but this exponential growth phase is preceded by a period known as lag phase, where no increase in cell number is seen. Lag phase was first described in the 19th Century, and was assumed to be needed by bacteria to prepare to exploit new environmental conditions - they are basically Zombies. Beyond this, surprisingly little is known about lag phase, other than bacteria are metabolically active in this period. But exactly what are bacteria doing physiologically during that time?

What is actually happening in the brain when one person looks at another? 

For people with prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize faces, information processing - the stages that our brains go through to recognize a face - is breaking down.