The title says that the experiments diagree with "the leading theory of the nucleus", which is chiral effective field theory. I don't see anything wrong or "clickbaity" about this.
I would characterize it as the article doesn't have anything overtly wrong with it, but it did make it easy to come away thinking this is revealing some sort of massive fundamental issue with everything, rather than what it is, which is the continuing process of tuning a highly successful theory down in the decimal points.
Whether or not you consider that to be part of their job is in the eyes of the reader.
That's not at all what's going on here. EFT is a limit of a more fundamental theory which is already known. Orbital mechanics were a limit of a more fundamental theory that was NOT known at the time.
Sorry, but unless you're a physicist, why would you expect to be able to know the significance of the paper? If you walked away misunderstanding the implications, then I gotta ask - assuming you're in software - are you careful to proofread your papers to ensure a geologist doesn't misunderstand them?
"Sorry, but unless you're a physicist, why would you expect to be able to know the significance of the paper?"
Because I expect a news article on the topic to clearly contextualize that answer. That is a core component of their job.
Quanta magazine is pretty good in most things I read, but I feel like they drop this particular ball pretty often. I suppose that concession to clickbaitery is the bare minimum anyone can survive with nowadays. But they are still several cuts above most things I read.
