What's a good way for a layperson to tell if this is a new scientific consensus arrived at after hundreds of researchers come to the same conclusion or a breakthrough result that has shocked the entire research community?
A promising new theory should fit known observations, explain previously unexplained phenomenon, and predict something testable. That will be difficult to judge as a layperson.
> “The brane-bulk model is a speculative idea for sure, but a fun one.”
I feel like it’s communicated pretty clearly that it isn’t some breakthrough finding that everybody agrees on. You could google the mentioned researchers/theories and find out more information if you still weren’t sure.
The world we live in is crazy. To know such a thing so easily at an earlier time, would be unfathomable :)
This article brings up neutron stars being slightly larger than expected, but the reality is there's no real expected maximum mass for a neutron star - because the equation of state and physics for neutron star interiors is unknown. The spin, and magnetic field of a neutron star can also serve to increase the maximum mass of a neutron star, which are very hard to model as there are no analytic solutions to a spinning body (nor an oblate body)
There are too many approximations in the paper to even come close to saying that the brane model explains this better than standard physics, and there's no reason to think that this event isn't explainable by standard physics