The original E8 theory of everything paper by Garret Lisi was written around 2 years ago. The paper mentioned in this article, published about a month ago, claims to prove that a theory of everything cannot be based on E8 http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3h4wh813606ggq8/?p=6d2b...

Yes. A preprint has been on the arxiv since May '09. Lisi has also responded to the criticism at length, and others have weighed in too.