March 27, 2016 at 02:24AM

Today I Learned: 1) Estivation and hibernation are not the same thing. Hibernation is slowing down metabolism to survive cold; estivation is slowing down metabolism to survive heat. Ants hibernate, not estivate. Thanks to Dorothy Fontaine for setting me straight on this one! 2) So you know how the US legally abolished slavery in the 1860s? Well, Britain beat us to it -- the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 legally emancipated slaves under the age of 6, and reclassified slaves over the age of 6 as apprentices, who would be phased out of apprenticeships over the next seven years. Slave owners were compensated for their losses, to a staggering tune of about £20 million, which is roughly equivalent to £70 billion today, and was 40% of Britain's expenditures for that year! 3) The ancient Greeks (and, therefore, much of Europe for most of known European history) apparently believed that the uterus was a sort of "animal within an animal", capable of moving around the body, and that wombs wandering into the wrong places could cause a number of illnesses and disorders.