Fifty million years ago, the Earth was hot enough for palm trees to live in the polar regions. So what changed? Scientists think that a type of freshwater fern called Azolla bloomed in huge amounts around 49 million years ago. For nearly a million years, this "super-plant" soaked up carbon dioxide and then sank to the bottom of the sea, drastically lowering carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and cooling the planet as a result.
(Not so)-interesting fact: I'm probably interested in this at the moment because my sister introduced me to Real Time Lightening Map. When there's a storm in your area it's quite mesmerising to just watch the map, looking out for new strikes to appear and watching the sound wave move towards you, until.... yep - there it is
Icelandic is an incredibly old language using a medieval alphabet, and has a lot fewer sounds than most languages. Therefore there is no "z" (very contentiously) and "c" "w" and "q" are only used for foreign words/foreign names.