Since 1989, Mark A. Landis periodically donates art to various museums. He asks for nothing in exchange, then disappears. Sooner or later, the art museum finds that the Curran, or Signac, or Lepine works he donated are forgeries, painted by Landis himself.

Unlike most forgers, he does not seem to be in it for the money, but for a kind of satisfaction at seeing his works accepted as authentic. He takes nothing more in return for them than an occasional lunch or a few tchotchkes from the gift shop. He turns down tax write-off forms, and it’s unclear whether he has broken any laws. But his activities have nonetheless cost museums, which have had to pay for analysis of the works, for research to figure out if more of his fakes are hiding in their collections and for legal advice. (The Hilliard said it discovered the forgery within hours, using a microscope to find a printed template beneath the paint.)

In the weeks since an article in The Art Newspaper first revealed the scope of the forgeries, museums and their lawyers have been trying to locate Mr. Landis, who was never easy to find in the first place because he often provided bogus addresses and phone numbers. But now he seems to have disappeared altogether.

Landis often uses often names and sometimes poses as a priest. Link -via Metafilter

Those of you who read the comments here at Neatorama know that the remaining writers are a thick-skinned bunch. We welcome comments, both kudos and criticism, but we have a couple of rules: we will delete comments that are personal attacks on other Neatoramanauts, we will edit or delete comments with particularly bad language, and of course, we remove spam. Other than that, we encourage a lively but mannerly debate about the things we post. And if you have suggestions for making Neatorama better, we'd love to hear them!

This week, Disney theme park fan Jill Harness gave us the lowdown on one of Walt Disney World's biggest attractions with Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain.

From Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, we learned about The Fight for Safe Milk: Swill Milk. Part two of the fight for safe milk will be published Monday.

We looked into The Neural Correlate of Ignorance, courtesy of the folks at the Annals of Improbable Research.

Around the World in Religious Traditions came to us from mental_floss magazine.

In the Museum of Possibilities, Steven M. Johnson takes time to imagine Umbrella Possibilities.

At NeatoBambino, Tiffany passed along some nuggets of wisdom in Life Lessons My Dad Taught Me.

At the art blog, we welcome a new collection from UK illustrator Sam Branton. Check out his works and those of all the other artists.

At Neatorama's literature blog BitLit, you're invited to follow the tale of “How Santa Saved The World Then Lost It All” in Happily Ever Over by C. Merry starting here. The first five chapters are up; be sure to check back as more chapters are posted. Pictured here is the story's ghost Lavender Mary. And you can read the entire novel Wizard Constable by Tom Van Natta.

In the What Is It? game this week, Robert McLaughlin was the first to correctly state that the mystery object is a canary cage for a coal mine -here’s an explanation. Among many humorous guesses, The Professor wins a t-shirt for “This is the server used by Facebook to keep users’ private information secure!”

Looking for more once you've read all of Neatorama? Check out the links at the NeatoHub or the Best of Neatorama!

A pterosaur fossil found in Liaoning Province, China, yields fascinating information about the prehistoric reptiles. Scientists believe the Darwinopterus pterosaur laid the now-fossil egg after it died.

Scientists think the adult was an expectant pterosaur mother that somehow broke her left wing, causing her to fall into the lake and drown. The body sank to the bottom and eventually expelled the egg.

"During the decay process, you get a buildup of gases and pressure inside the carcass, and that tends to expel things out," said study co-author David Unwin, a paleontologist at the University of Leicester in the U.K. The egg "didn't go very far. It just came out of the body and sat there."

In addition to the associated egg, the fossil has a larger pelvis than other known Darwinopterus fossils, which is consistent with the animal being a female.

Chemical analysis of the egg suggests that, instead of laying hard-shell eggs and watching over the chicks, as most birds do, pterosaur mothers laid soft-shell eggs, which they buried in moist ground and abandoned.

The fossil gives clues as to how the eggs were formed and hatched, and since this is the first conclusively female fossil, we're finding out more about sex differences in pterosaurs. Read more at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!

(Image courtesy of Lü Junchang, Institute of Geology, Beijing)

One of the great things about the internet is that designers and manufacturers can find a specialized clientele, and consumers can find specialized items that locals stores cannot afford to stock. Case in point: jewelry that reflects your interest in the geeky worlds of technology, video games, science fiction, and other hobbies. Check out some awesome jewelry items in this list at Oddee, like these circuit board earrings. Link

Kim Neill is a designer and illustrator has plenty of pantone color chips laying around, which made it easier for her to create cookies in exact pantone colors. She mixed royal icing until the colors were right, and added the color names with an edible marker once the icing was set. Instructions are included in the post. http://www.kimcreativestar.com/Portfolio/Cures_for_Boredom/Entries/2011/1/1_PANTONE_CHIP_COOKIES!.html -via J-Walk Blog

Caldwell Tanner and Kevin Corrigan rounded up internet memes to bedevil Batman and Robin in a series of comic book cover mashups. There are five in all; this one is my favorite. http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1812593 -via Gorilla Mask

(YouTube link) Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic perform Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" on cellos. Cellos are cool! -via Buzzfeed

What you Tweet can get you into trouble! Mental_floss has the stories of four high-profile lawsuits that followed a careless Tweet. One that has yet to be settled involves fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir and some Tweets by singer Courtney Love.

After the two had worked amicably together designing custom dresses for Love, the relationship soured after some disagreements over the amount of money Simorangkir charged for the clothes. At 12:55am on the morning of March 17, 2009, Love started a series of social media posts railing against Simorangkir, starting with a lengthy post on MySpace, numerous tweets throughout the rest of the day, and even hitting the comments section of the popular handcrafted product site Etsy, where Love initially discovered Simorangkir’s work. Over the course of her day-long rant, Love accused the designer of stealing, lying, being a drug dealer and addict, being a homophobe and racist, having been arrested for prostitution, and even threatened “you will end up in a circle of scorched earth hunted til your dead.”

Simorangkir made accusations of libel and breach of contract. Love countered with freedom of speech. That trial is scheduled for next month. Read about that case and three others at mental_floss. Link

Horse with Hands Riding a Bike is a one-subject blog, but it's not a simple subject. What's hard to draw? Horses. Hands. Bicycles. Put them all together for a true test of anyone's drawing skills. Edward Carter did a good job with this one. Hero of Switzerland challenges anyone to draw a horse with hands riding a bike and submit it. Link -via b3ta

Rubber is a French comedy/thriller that revolves around a murderous tire.

RUBBER is the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life. As Robert roams the bleak landscape, he discovers that he possesses terrifying telepathic powers that give him the ability to destroy anything he wishes without having to move. At first content to prey on small desert creatures and various discarded objects, his attention soon turns to humans, especially a beautiful and mysterious woman who crosses his path. Leaving a swath of destruction across the desert landscape, Robert becomes a chaotic force to be reckoned with, and truly a movie villain for the ages.

Despite an April 1 release date, this is a real feature film that made the rounds of film festivals last year. http://www.rubberthemovie.com/ -via Buzzfeed

In 1983, Fritz Gall and Friedl Umscheid opened the Nonseum in Herrnbaumgarten, Austria. The Nonseum is a home for inventions that never took off -many of which never made any sense in the first place.

Now, the Nonmuseum has hundreds of useless items on display, and has just celebrated its 100,000th visitor. Among the many eccentric inventions of this unusual museum, you can find a Portable Anonymizer that’s supposed to keep your identity a secret in real life, a foldable  snow sled, a guillotine for finger nails, and even a Champagne Cork Catcher – a device that keeps the cork from flying away when you pop open the bottle.

The object shown, housed at the Nonseum, is the foldable sled. Link -via the Presurfer

These two picture of the Bund in Shanghai show the growth of that part of the city in just  the last twenty years. Yes, although it may remind you of an early 20th-century photograph, the top picture was taken in 1990. The bottom picture was taken in 2010. According to a comment from a Shanghai redditor, this is an accurate depiction of the tremendous construction since then. Link

The line-up for the annual Coachella festival was leaked a few days ago, and dozens of parody posters featuring everything from deceased artists to the most horrific music combinations have been designed. Urlesque collected the funniest posters into one post, and added this one featuring internet memes. Link

At one time, the black-footed ferret was one of the rarest animals in the world. They were native to the Great Plains, but thought to be extinct. Then in 1981, 18 ferrets were found and rounded up for their own safety. Captive breeding programs produced 7,000 ferrets since then. They are being introduced into the wild a few at a time, but first each has to go to "boot camp" to learn how to be a feral ferret. That training facility is the National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center in Colorado.

Ferrets live in the Colorado facility until there’s an opening in one of the 48 outdoor pens, each about the size of a studio apartment. It’s a tough transition, says Paul Marinari of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, manager of the center. “They have to deal with cold and bugs, rain, snow, dust, all things they don’t have to deal with inside.”

It has taken a few tries to get the training right. In the past, researchers swooped down on ferrets with stuffed raptors and sent in “robo-badgers” to boost the ferrets’ ability to defend themselves against common predators. But the most important part, Marinari says, involves live prey: “The more practice ferrets get going after prey, the better they do.”

Ferrets that have gone through the training are more likely to survive on their own than other ferrets. Link

(Image credit: Morgan Heim)

It doesn't matter what band it is or what era they are from, chances are that at least some of this time line by Grant Snider will apply to them, sooner or later. Link -via reddit