Changing of the brains at Brainiac

Readers, I'm leaving Brainiac.

Christopher Shea, whose Critical Faculties column Ideas readers miss terribly, will replace me as blogger and "Brainiac" columnist for the Globe's Ideas section. This will not be his first appearance in this space, of course: Shea was one of the blog's cofounders in September 2006. Along with Evan Hughes, Jan Freeman, and John Swansburg, Shea blogged regularly for Brainiac until October 2007, at which point I started driving this rig solo -- and reverse-publishing from the blog into Ideas. Now it's his turn to take the wheel.

Blogging for Ideas has been a terrific experience, thanks to four smart, with-it, and mostly hands-off Ideas editors and deputy editors: Wen Stephenson, John Swansburg, Gareth Cook, and Steve Heuser. Gareth, in particular, took pains to make sure that blogging every day while writing a weekly column would be easy and rewarding; I look forward to contributing to Ideas soon. Thanks also to the Globe's Ryan Mulcahy and Greg Klee for making "Brainiac" (the column) fun. It's a great team; I'll miss working with them.

I'll continue blogging here through June 27th, and my final Brainiac column will appear in the Ideas section on Sunday the 29th. After that? I'm hoping to take it easy, for a few months. But I do have a couple of other projects on tap, including "The Idler's Glossary," which will be published this September. It would be hypocritical of me not to slow down and watch the clouds drift by, don'tcha think?

Please join me in welcoming Christopher Shea to Brainiac! I can't wait to read his posts.