XCOM: Enemy Unknown Interview

MTV Multiplayer has cranked out an article-style interview with XCOM: Enemy Unknown designer and programmer Jacob Solomon, in which they quiz him about two important topics: alien autopsies and research. A couple of paragraphs:
Solomon promises that every research effort will yield some kind of reward for players, including new items that they can build, additional tactical information. Interrogation has the added advantage of providing players with boosts in different areas of research based on their own expertise (for instance, one of the game's flying aliens, if captured, provides a boost to flying technology). Solomon says that all of the alien types can be captured, but it's still a risky venture. For Solomon, this kind of feature makes XCOM less of an abstract strategy game where a player has to pay attention to meters and charts and more of a concrete one where a player can see the tangible effects of their choices.

"You cannot ignore autopsies, because they give you some very powerful upgrades. So as an experienced player, you really know that you can't ignore the autopsies." But if, for whatever reason, a player doesn't want to make the time commitment to autopsies, one of the bonus functions of a continent like South America is that while it'll produce fewer resources, the research is instantaneous as opposed to the normal average of three days in game time.