There is tons of great journalism, fiction, photography, poetry out there in the world of blogs (I hate the term blogosphere). Problem is that for every Moby Dick of the blog world there are at least a thousand Atlas Shruggeds–if you get my drift. It’s too bad there’s no blog police or something of that sort because the sheer number of questionably readable blogs out there makes it really hard to sort out the Captain Ahabs from the objectivist drivel. Ok. Metaphor killed. That’s why, every now and ‘whenever-I-feel-like-it’ I’m going to do short profiles of blogs that are actually worth your time. As in, something interesting to read while you’re waiting for the latest episode of House to download.

There are blogs that are way wide of the mark, blogs that are streaky and there are blogs that consistently hit it out of the park. Mind Hacks is part of that elite last group. Originally started in 2004 to presumably promote their book of the same name, Mind Hacks: Tips & Tricks for using your Brain, this blog is the only promotional one I know of that has made it past 20 posts, never mind over half a decade.

I think it’s managed to be so popular because they cover a popular topic, the brain, but not in a ‘scientists-have-discovered-the-(insert behaviour here)-part-of-the-brain’ kind of way but in a ‘people-have-actually-studied-that?!’ kind of way. For example, a post that has served me well at many a dinner party is about a study that looks into Russian Roulette. In a ten year period, the researchers managed to find a 24 cases of death by Russian Roulette–IN KENTUCKY ALONE. The victims, to use that term lightly, were mostly young, drunk or stoned men, with a bias towards body art. There was even a case report of a man who played the death-defying game with five bullets and one empty chamber. I’m glad I have no reason to ever go to Kentucky.

Russian Roulette is just the beginning. Other notable posts include a 24 year old man who break into seizures consisting of repetitive hugging and kissing people nearby whenever he saw a staircase but not if he saw the staircase from above. A guy who robbed two banks with lemon juice on his face thinking that that would prevent video cameras from recording his face. And a forensic investigation into a gladiator grave determining how they died and what weapons killed them. What?! You didn’t click on that last link? Crazy. Here it is again: gladiator forensics.

The real reason this blog is so popular, though, is that the posts are frequent, short and easy to read. They manage to steer well clear of the jargon that riddles the fields of psychology and neuroscience giving their blog a general audience rating. Well, general audience in terms of readability. I wouldn’t want my kids reading about Russian Roulette and GLADIATOR FORENSICS!

Check out Mind Hacks here.