How were the heavy elements formed in the wake of Big Bang – see https://phys.org/print462530198.html … research from the University of Western Australia suggests condtions differ to what the theory has up to now allowed. Surprisingly, Big Bang theory goes all the way back to 1927. In the wake of the violent explosion – followed by expansion and the formation of the stars, conditions were turbulent (as one might expect). Not so according to the new theory. Not nearly so turbulent -and in fact hardly turbulent at all.
Turbulence was required for energy transfer but the new idea is it happened much more sedately. It slowly built up rather than rapidly built up, and formed hot spots of energy that were localised (resulting in the formation of metals such as iron, gold and silver). It sounds almost like alchemy – but I suppose it is the press release itself (that wasn't written by the scientists) and a fascination with certain heavy elements (as others must have been mentioned in the study). See PNAS (November 2018) DOI:10.1073/pnas1714502115