The "modern" work is a joke. It is literally a hoax. String Theory is a parady of real science. You *can't* unify Einstein's General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.
You can't even add the Cosmological Constant back into General Relativity. Einstein did that very thing in his 1919 paper that "proved" that our universe was static, not expanding (and we all know how that turned out).
This is old ground. It's been covered. What's "new" is that scientists are quite willing to spout nonsense and jump through absurd gyrations rather than take a hard stand by saying that either GR or QM is right while the other is wrong.
GR and QM are *mutually* exclusive. Some new theory won't change that fundamental fact. Not String Theory. Not SuperString Theory. Not anything.
There is just one right answer between GR and QM: choose one.