THIS, and not whether S&P might downgrade France, is the real tragedy:

If you thought all the news reports that wine was good for your health were too good to be true, you could be right. Some of the research was faked, says the University of Connecticut.

After a three-year investigation, the university concluded that Dipak Das, a professor of surgery and head of the university's cardiovascular research centre, "is guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data."

An anonymous tip of possible fraud in 2008 triggered the investigation. The result was a massive report, totalling nearly 60,000 pages, that documents the case against Das. The report was drawn from examination of more than 100 papers and a summary is available online.

The university has notified 11 journals in which Das published suspect papers and has begun dismissal procedures.