Science & Technology

A San Antonio research team has uncovered a way to cure the deadly Hepatitis C – promising shorter treatments and fewer side effects than today’s standard treatment.

Hepatitis C can be treated today with a battery of interferon interventions treatments -- which takes 48 weeks and the side effects are debilitating -- but a new treatment using a combination of drugs needs only 12 weeks to kill the virus with much fewer side effects.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Television makers are trying to find the next big thing that will get you to throw out your current TV and buy a new one. They thought it might be 3D TV. That didn't work out. So now they've come up with something new. They're showing it off this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is where we found Rich Jaroslovsky. He writes about technology for Bloomberg News, and he told us about the newest new viewing experience.

On average, YouTube streams 4 billion hours of video per month. That's a lot of video, but it's only a fraction of the larger online-streaming ecosystem. For video-streaming services, making sure clips always load properly is extremely challenging, and a new study reveals that it's important to video providers, too.

Maybe this has happened to you: You're showing a friend some hilarious video that you found online. And right before you get to the punch line, a little loading dial pops up in the middle of the screen.

The Consumer Electronics Show started Tuesday in Las Vegas. There's a lot of excitement about widespread use of 3-D sensor technology in smartphones and tablets.

Melissa Block talks to Jean Lee, Korea Bureau Chief of the Associated Press, about the private delegation that is visiting North Korea. The group is led by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and includes Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt.

Sophisticated hacking attacks on U.S. banks in recent months have distinctive qualities that are leading investigators to believe another nation may be behind the assault. The likely suspect is Iran, which officials believe may be trying to even the score for American hacking of its nuclear program.

At least nine U.S. financial institutions have been hit since September; more attacks are expected. And part of what makes them suspicious is that they seem calculated not to steal account data or money, but instead to disrupt the banking system.

If you've spent years CRANKING YOUR MUSIC UP TO 11, this item's for you.

A drug developed for Alzheimer's disease can partially reverse hearing loss caused by exposure to extremely loud sounds, an international team reports in the journal Neuron.

Before you go back to rocking the house with your Van Halen collection, though, consider that the drug has only been tried in mice so far. And it has never been approved for human use.