Some researchers found an error in the logic of merge_collapse, explained here, and with corrected code shown in section 3.2:

http://envisage-project.eu/proving-android-java-and-python-sorting-algorithm-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/

This affects all current versions of Python.  However, I marked the priority "low" because, as the article also notes, there's currently no machine in existence with enough memory to hold an array large enough for a contrived input to trigger an overflow of the pending-runs stack. 

It should be fixed anyway, and their suggested fix looks good to me.