Pretty much. Popularized descriptions already strain the edges of what could be considered correct under general relativity, and then when we throw string theory into the mix, things get even messier.
To give you a sense how bad it gets there, string theory results and arguments have to be "popularized" to an almost meaningless level just so that theoretical physicists that don't work in string theory can understand them, just because the whole field is so young and complex; filter that once more through a journalist, and you can end up with some pretty wacky claims, even if they're completely true.
I'd make no specific claims as to whether this research means anything or not, though; it's a famously speculative field, with only the barest of observable evidence to go on, and effects from pretty much every length and energy scale factor crucially into any cosmological evolution, making it all but impossible to say with any certainty that one proposed solution is better than another. This is where you start to get people arguing in terms of symmetry and beauty rather than observation, which brings physics awfully close for comfort to philosophy...
To give you a sense how bad it gets there, string theory results and arguments have to be "popularized" to an almost meaningless level just so that theoretical physicists that don't work in string theory can understand them, just because the whole field is so young and complex; filter that once more through a journalist, and you can end up with some pretty wacky claims, even if they're completely true.
I'd make no specific claims as to whether this research means anything or not, though; it's a famously speculative field, with only the barest of observable evidence to go on, and effects from pretty much every length and energy scale factor crucially into any cosmological evolution, making it all but impossible to say with any certainty that one proposed solution is better than another. This is where you start to get people arguing in terms of symmetry and beauty rather than observation, which brings physics awfully close for comfort to philosophy...