Gene therapy can protect against HIV

Gene therapy, an approach most commonly explored for curing chronic genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, may also prove practical for disease prevention. In research published today in Nature1, scientists in California show that a single injection — which inserted the DNA for an HIV-neutralizing antibody into the muscle cells of live mice — completely protected the animals against HIV transmission.
via nature.com

This is great news, specially for today (HIV/AIDS awareness day).

My first (and hopefully last) meme

(This started as a joke one day when I was cleaning my yard. There were lots of banana trees, and it turns out being really hard to remove them — they have this pod-like structure deep in the ground that must be removed, otherwise they will grow again. Since I don't like bananas and I read that all banana trees share the same DNA, I came with the theory that they are in fact aliens. They come to Earth on the pod-like structure, and they dominate everyone who eats banana. When the aliens rise I will be the only one able to fight them, since I don't eat bananas.)