An interesting result was seen by the ESO after a GRB passed through some intervening galaxies.  Investigation showed they had a "surprising" amount of heay elements - much more than expected.

Surprising Ingredients of Early Galaxies

These galaxies had a redshift of 3.57, which translates into 1.8BY after the Big Bang. 

I wonder if further GRB examinations will continue this "trend", or if this was an anomaly.

If I wanted to bet, my money would be on the trend continuing. I think the Standard Model Big Bang theory has greatly under estimated the size and age of the universe.

Agreed.

You might want to chime in on the thread:

What I Believe

Fun stuff!

this is carbon at less than 1 billion years after the BB
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Abundant_Carbon_in_the_Early_Universe_999.html
L

Okay, interesting, but whoever wrote that article needs to go back to school; it's one of the worst written pieces I've seen in some time.  Are there any other links you can provide that provide better reading?  (No offense meant)

How about the preprint?

I remember something about carbon formation at higher-than-expected levels at around 900 Myr, but I thought that particular paper was quite some time ago. Something along the lines of the hypotheses of carbon formation actually requiring on the order of 1 Gyr, which was even more problematic because the galaxy couldn't be even as much as 900 Myr.

Wish I could remember where I saw it...

On the mainstream front, folks are feeling joy at finding primordial low metallicity clouds. Nathan Sanders there has some interesting comments on missing mechanisms for metal dispersion.