That's irrelevant. Whatever rumors or gossip you may have heard about Koch. What you think scientists should be working on. Particularly misplaced is your baffling comparison with Kaku. Koch, a longtime professor at Caltech with over 80,000 citations on the field vs a complete and utter outsider, as well as crackpots on HN, as though their expertise is somewhat equivalent.

In the story at hand, Koch came up with a new tracing technique, found a remarkable structure. That's what the article is about.