I took a peek. I think you saw a lot of coverage in non-scientific press because one Dr Saul Justin Newman was awarded an ig nobel (not a terribly serious, academically rigorous award) and the non-scientific press did what they do. I think you may be putting too much weight on what appears to be a set of statistical arguments being made by one researcher to say it’s been “thoroughly debunked”, but I also see that it was never a very well-informed observation in the first place.