What is PubPeer capable of?

Many scientific studies are flawed. Often, the reason is poor methodology. Sometimes, it is outright fraud. The conventional means of correction — a letter to the journal concerned — can take months. But there is now an alternative. PubPeer is a website that lets people comment anonymously on research papers and so, in theory, helps purge the scientific literature of erroneous findings more speedily.

As voters in Italy on Sunday emphatically rejected constitutional changes aimed at streamlining government and making it easier to revive a moribund economy, they enhanced concerns that the country’s banks could spiral into a disaster. They reinvigorated worries about the endurance of the euro currency and broader European economic integration. And they amplified the sense that Europe is a land of disappointing growth, political dysfunction and seething populism.