In future, people will be able to use this project (including it's shortcomings) as a learning tool.
Kudos to the team for biting off more than they could chew, for now we all have a better of idea of what size bite to go for next time.
Should we positively reinforce people who jump of cliffs convinced they have a novel scientific theory of gravity that will allow them to fly? Presumably not. Then presumably we should take a similar view of those who attempt things that are similarly scientifically impossible, even if said impossibility is less obvious to a lay observer.
I've spent about 15 years in research on colloidal nanoparticles, much of that for biological applications of magnetic and fluorescent nanoparticles. There are countless barriers to creating the proposed "tricorder", each significant enough that overcoming even a single one would make one a "made man" in academia, e.g., "solving" RES uptake.
Look at this statement from the article, for one example of what I see as hubris,
"The particles were so safe, [Conrad] said, that animal testing could be skipped."
Also, your statement that we should "positively reinforce the fact that they had the fucking balls to try" reads to me as if you are unaware that there are many of us in the biomedical world trying, very hard, fighting over scraps of funding and trying to move the ball down the field. We just aren't in the public eye or consciousness. It hurts to see a group like Verily get celebrated for trying when the rest of us get ignored (or worse, dismissed) when we're working on some pretty challenging stuff under some lousy conditions.
It's also actually something we see in the story of theranos, and it's quite puzzling - as almost as if you need to sell the project to the public and investors the same way you sell some mobile game.
I mean I know that there are doubters for good ideas too but what's the line to draw in terms of skepticism?