Bioprospecting is the scientific search through plants, animals, bacteria, and other living things found in nature, in order to discover new drugs or other useful products. It is the noun for that work: “bioprospecting in the Amazon,” “a bioprospecting trip.” Scientists take samples, test them in a lab, and hope one compound can become a medicine. The word is formal. Though actually, newspapers sometimes use it as a proud word for “finding cures in nature,” and campaigners use the neighbouring word biopiracy when they think the finding was taken from local knowledge without a fair share. Both can describe the same kind of trip. It is not farming, and it is not a short walk in the woods; it is organised collecting and testing. The picture behind the word is the same as prospecting for gold — searching the land — only here the find is living.

生物探勘