Who said anything about Quarks?
The Toronto Star article didn't mention Quarks or Gamma rays at all. It talkied about collisions between atoms of existing elements - each with its complement of Protons, neutrons, and non-valence electrons (one imagines that the atoms were at least partly ionized so that they could be accellerated into each other).
We're talking about colliding enough protons and neutrons to make element 118, not building it from scratch with quarks.