On Friday, the U.S. central bank approved a half-percentage point cut in its discount rate on loans to banks to "promote the restoration of orderly conditions in financial markets."

The decision means the discount rate, the interest rate that the Fed charges to make direct loans to banks, will be lowered to 5.75 percent from 6.25 percent.

But the Fed did not change its target for the more important federal funds rate, the interest commercial banks charge each other on overnight loans. The benchmark interest rate has remained at 5.25 percent for more than a year.

In the statement announcing the interest rate cut, the Fed said it "is monitoring the situation and is prepared to act as needed to mitigate the adverse effects on the economy arising from the disruptions in financial markets."     

In 2003, Catalona became director of the Clinical Prostate Cancer Program at Northwestern University in Chicago, asking participants in former research efforts that he oversaw at Washington University if they would consent to transferring their tissue to Northwestern.

Donors of 4,000 tissue samples agreed to the transfer, but Washington University sued to keep the samples there, and won rulings from a U.S. District Court judge and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In papers filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, Catalona says he and the research participants could suffer irreparable harm if the appeals court decision is allowed to go into effect.

Washington University could use the tissue in studies the patients would find objectionable, or publish research results in a way that could identify the patients, Catalona's lawyers argued, raising the possibility that participants or their family members might be denied health, life or disability insurance.

In June, Dr. Larry Shapiro, dean of Washington University's School of Medicine, called the appeals court decision a precedent that assures the right of research institutions to use repositories without fear they will be taken or disrupted.

A dozen major research universities, as well as the American Cancer Society and associations of medical colleges and universities, had filed briefs supporting Washington University.

Catalona's lawyers asked Justice Samuel Alito to delay the appeals court decision until the full Supreme Court decides whether it will review the case.

IDC analyst Rebecca Swensen said the Skype outage -- traced to Microsoft's set of Windows updates rolled out last week -- serves as a reminder that the reliability of VoIP is not the same as traditional telephone networks, but she pointed out that, historically, Skype's network has been reliable, and said that the reliability of VoIP is improving.

Skype said that the disruption of its service that occurred globally last week had been triggered by a massive rebooting of Windows computers around the world, and that no malicious activities or security  issues had been involved.

The high number of restarts, which occurred as the Windows computers rebooted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update, "affected Skype's network resources," wrote Skype spokesperson Villu Arak on Monday morning. The reboot unleashed a flood of log-in requests, which -- when combined with the lack of existing peer-to-peer network resources because of the rebooting -- "prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact."

Normally Skype's peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, Arak observed. However, last week's interruption of service "revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly," he explained.

She is a member of the Board of Visitors for Wayne State University Law School, where she once served as an adjunct faculty member. Gleicher earned her law degree from Wayne State University and got her bachelor's degree from Carleton College in Minnesota. Her term will expire Jan. 1, 2009.

Beckering, 42, most recently served as an attorney with Buchanan & Beckering, PLLC law firm and as a mediator for the Kent County Circuit Court. She earned her law degree from the University of Wisconsin and received her bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan.

Last year, Beckering ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic nominee in the Michigan Supreme Court election. Her term will expire Jan. 1, 2009.

Granholm, a Democrat, has appointed five judges to the appeals bench since taking office in 2003.

Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Clifford Taylor has said within recent months that four of the 28 appeals judgeships can be cut to save money during the state's budget crisis. But Granholm was unlikely to agree to limit her ability to replace vacancies on the appeals court, which former Republican Gov. John Engler filled with conservative-leaning appointees.