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Researchers may do well to heed Groucho Marx's comment: “I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

Academy awards: “If you choose to accept this invitation” — you will be in colourful company.

Two weeks ago Nature revealed that the self-styled European Academy of Sciences appears to have no high-brow status (see Nature 419, 865; 2002), despite grandiose claims made to scientists invited to become members. Now, it seems, a similar academy has emerged across the Atlantic.

Over the past few months, the North American Academy of Arts and Sciences — not to be confused with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts — has bulk-distributed e-mails to researchers, inviting them to become members.

Membership and its 'benefits' — such as the opportunity to publish in the academy's journals — are free, although members are encouraged to send off $20 for a certificate. On its website the academy claims to offer scholarships and awards, and to organize conferences and contests. It laments that “all too often, those who make the greatest contribution to our society go unrecognized”.

But Nature has been unable to find any record of the academy's publications, awards or conferences, or to contact its organizers. No names appear on any of its e-mails or on its website, which is registered to a postal address in Budapest, Hungary. Enquiries sent to several of the academy's listed e-mail addresses went unanswered.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences says it has had the website closed down several times, only to see it spring up again. It is now considering legal action.

Many scientists have become members of the self-styled “learned society”, according to its website, joining a feng shui expert, a hypnotherapist and a town crier. Computer scientist Kia Ng, of the University of Leeds, UK, says he knows little about the academy, but joined “because it only involved clicking a link”. He has not bought a certificate.

“It is nice to say you are a member, especially if you don't pay anything,” says Dragan Cisic, a researcher in maritime studies at the University of Rijeka, Croatia.

Others say that their names are being used without their knowledge. Hossein Arsham, a statistician at the University of Baltimore, Maryland, is listed as a member, but says that he has never heard of the academy and that its information about him is years out of date.

The academy offers its fellows the opportunity to make money by writing exam questions for an online certification programme, to be offered through the “New York College of Advanced Studies”. The college's website, which gives no details of its accreditation or organizers, says that for “three easy payments of US$21”, students will be able to take tests and receive certificates from the college, described as an affiliate of the academy.