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Ozzy Osbourne To Be Genetically Decoded

Posted by samzenpus on from the genes-of-darkness dept.

Dashiva Dan writes "DNA research lab Knome has announced that it is going to sequence Ozzy's entire genome. Ozzy, the former lead singer of Black Sabbath, reality television star, and spokesman for World of Warcraft among many other things, has been selected so they can discover, among other things, how drugs are absorbed in the body. The amount of abuse Ozzy has put himself through and survived is a large part of why he was chosen."

56 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. The secret to his DNA revealed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Eating the heads off Bats. It gives him superpowers .... Shwing!

    1. Re:The secret to his DNA revealed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, it has. He has been dead twice, and come back twice. That's more than Jesus.

  2. Survived? by JorDan+Clock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this all really hinges on your definition of "survived."

    1. Re:Survived? by blair1q · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In this case it's, "made more money letting a few cameras wander around his family's life than in decades of laborious rock and roll."

    2. Re:Survived? by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's more coherent than a lot of younger meth or crack users out there.

    3. Re:Survived? by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think this all really hinges on your definition of "survived."

      "Somehow isn't dead after snorting the entire cocaine output of a small south american nation."

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    4. Re:Survived? by NewbieProgrammerMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think Keith Richards qualifies for that; is he being decoded as well?

      --
      [b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
    5. Re:Survived? by JanneM · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "is he being decoded as well?"

      He's already pickled; they can wait and do that at any time.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    6. Re:Survived? by BluBrick · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's too late for Keith - he's already dead.
      He actually died in 1992, but no-one had the heart to tell him.

      --
      Ahh - My eye!
      The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
    7. Re:Survived? by CAIMLAS · · Score: 4, Funny

      Watch: after finding out that Ozzie's DNA has decayed to only slightly-worse-than-average they get permission to dig up his mom and dad and sequence their DNA. The result will be astounding: they'll be from out of this world.

      The secret to human evolution, it will seem, may have been drug abuse.

      --
      ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
    8. Re:Survived? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The reason is the drug war. In the olden days, Illegal drugs were made by professional chemists in white coats who had pride in the quality of their product.
      It also had the backing of big money from that are better unnamed sources and pure intermediate chemicals to work with.
      Today, It's made using the simplest and usually worst methods, using filthy chemicals by thugs.

    9. Re:Survived? by hitmark · · Score: 4, Insightful

      makes one wonder how it would have worked out, had it been sold next to alcohol.

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    10. Re:Survived? by adamofgreyskull · · Score: 2, Funny

      Shouldn't they have picked Sharon instead since she survived Ozzy?

      Perhaps, but what insight into the human genome would that provide? Never forget.

    11. Re:Survived? by DesScorp · · Score: 5, Informative

      The reason is the drug war. In the olden days, Illegal drugs were made by professional chemists in white coats who had pride in the quality of their product.
      It also had the backing of big money from that are better unnamed sources and pure intermediate chemicals to work with.
      Today, It's made using the simplest and usually worst methods, using filthy chemicals by thugs.

      You have a very idealized version of drug use's "Good Ole' Days". There really weren't any. To begin with, the first Federal prohibition against drugs didn't come until 1914, when the Harrison Act was passed. And many of the drugs on the prohibited list aren't very common on the streets today.

      Do you know when America had its biggest addiction problem, by far? If you said "the sixties" or "today", you'd be flat wrong. The high water mark for addiction in this country was between the Civil War and right before WWI. Between 2 and 5 percent of the population was addicted to drugs. And I mean really addicted. Do you know who helped cause this? Dirty street pushers? Columbian gangs? No.

      Doctors.

      That's right, our biggest addiction rates came from the men in "clean white coats".... but it was all legal. After morphine became widely available, doctors so overused opiates for even minor patient problems that addiction became common. You could literally go the hospital with a middling ailment and come home addicted to morphine.

        Do you know what the most common profile of the American drug addict was prior to WWI? The white, middle class housewife. The closest thing to a "drug pusher" was the snake oil salesman that offered a bottle of liquid for whatever ailed you. And that bottle was often up to 50 percent morphine-based, and was often cut with dangerous chemicals. So much for pride in quality of the product.

      There are legitimate criticisms of the drug war, many of them. But don't pretend that before the "drug war" that we didn't have a huge problem. The biggest aid in bringing down both the addiction rate, and cleaning up the quality of drugs? A government law. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which prohibited the consumption of opiates without a prescription.

      --
      Life is hard, and the world is cruel
    12. Re:Survived? by fractoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I read a short story recently that described a guy from 2100ish re-engineering his liver to produce heroin and then going back in time with the intent of investing the drug money and becoming rich. When he arrived back in present-day America it was this utopia and the only difference was that all drugs were legalised (and hence there were no drug gangs, no cartels, far fewer deaths due to questionable-quality black market drugs etc.) I've googled for it to no avail, can anyone name the story?

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    13. Re:Survived? by damienl451 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's right, our biggest addiction rates came from the men in "clean white coats".... but it was all legal.

      [...]

      The biggest aid in bringing down both the addiction rate, and cleaning up the quality of drugs? A government law. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which prohibited the consumption of opiates without a prescription.

      Presumably, obtaining a prescription would not have been very hard if, as you argue, doctors were so keen on giving morphine to their patients. I think your post is quite self-contradictory. If the large addiction rates came from men in clean white coats, then the Food and Drug Act would not have made any difference. Might it not be like OHSA, i.e. the law came into force as other factors were influencing drug use/workplace safety and did not directly cause any change? Could it not indicate that, by 1906, people, including the government, had realized the risks associated with the use of morphine and were becoming less willing to use it? This would make a lot of sense since the Act was only passed *after* journalists wrote scathing articles about the patent medicine industry. Another element that bears this out is that Coca Cola stopped including cocaine in its beverage in 1903.

      Furthermore, the Act did not even prohibit the consumption of opiates without a prescription. Rather, it imposed mandatory labeling requirements for drugs and food containing alcohol, opiates, etc. Most of the rules laid out in the Act are common sense rules that are simply meant to prevent fraud and ensure that individuals can give informed consent before taking a drug. Seems a lot better than assuming that people can't make the right decision when they are presented with all the facts. My point of view is that drug abuse and alcoholism were rampant in the 19th and early 20th century because standards of living were much lower, many diseases that are now considered minor inconveniences could kill you, and, for many people, life was overall much less enjoyable than it is now. Given these constraints, it is understandable that these people would have different time preferences than we do and favor present enjoyment (i.e. getting high, smoking, etc.) over future benefits.

  3. Do they have any of his old DNA by blair1q · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Do they have any of Ozzy's old DNA?

    i'd love to see a before-and-after diff...

    1. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At worst they can probably check his kid's dna to get a rough idea.

      Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think(?) that anything other than radiation can break down dna.

    2. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by hedwards · · Score: 2, Informative

      All sorts of things can, from free radicals, to cell duplication to sun exposure. But in this case they aren't interested in that so much as what about his DNA might have contributed to him surviving that much abuse.

      It's hard to say, but he could always just happen to represent the long tail of the distribution.

    3. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Informative

      Also, I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think(?) that anything other than radiation can break down dna.

      Epigenetics are proving to be far more influenced by our environment than we thought. Here's one article that suggests BPA affects the epigenetics of mice.

      As far as DNA goes, it's actually pretty easy to break down or otherwise make inoperable. Ionizing radiation does do it quickly, but normal cellular processes even damage it. Thousands of chemicals and proteins are mutagenic. Fortunately, your cells, skin, and clothing help protect the DNA, and there's a lot of active repair. Still, it seems that many (almost all?) cancers are caused initially damage to the DNA.

      Many drugs probably have mutagenic properties and could damage your DNA. Having said that, it wouldn't make -specific changes- to the DNA in your -whole body- and thus would not fundamentally alter your DNA sequence. Maybe cocaine would cause breaks in your DNA at random places. There's a lot of DNA, the chances that it would break your DNA at a specific point in every single cell in your body... it's virtually impossible.

    4. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by ZirconCode · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, a Common mutagen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutagen) are Alkaloid plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaloid) which include Cocaine. I'm sure there are more but that's what I was able to figure out after a quick google.

    5. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by jamesh · · Score: 4, Funny

      Retroviruses would work

      Retroviruses are so last-century.

    6. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Interesting

          With the bit I know about street drugs, and the amount he has done over the years, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if some was tainted with some sort of radioactive material. I'm afraid to know many radiation tainted drugs came out of Eastern Europe around 1986/1987.

          I knew someone who OD'd (and survived). I knew what drugs she thought she had been taking. I also had the opportunity to read her toxicology report. Thank goodness it wasn't a postmortem report, and she gave it to me to read. The report almost read like a complete list on every street drug and several pharmaceuticals. Everything *EXCEPT* for the ones she had taken. For some reason, I pictured a drug manufacturer sweeping the floor, taking everything that was the right color, and pressing it into the pills she had taken.

          The report didn't have anything else on it, so I'm guessing they didn't test for heavy metals or anything of that sort. If they had, I wouldn't have been all that surprised to see mercury and lead in the list.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    7. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's a lot of DNA

      That's ok, he took a lot of drugs to compensate.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    8. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by peragrin · · Score: 2, Funny

      Retroviruses would work

      Retroviruses are so last-century.

      That's right This century it is nano self modifying viruses

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    9. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by wisty · · Score: 2, Funny

      So that's where he gained his mutant powers?

    10. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by Kaeso · · Score: 5, Funny

      The report didn't have anything else on it, so I'm guessing they didn't test for heavy metals or anything of that sort. If they had, I wouldn't have been all that surprised to see mercury and lead in the list.

      As for Ozzy, he at least ought to test positive for heavy metal...

    11. Re:Do they have any of his old DNA by JWSmythe · · Score: 2, Interesting

          That's pretty much what I was thinking. Nothing intentionally radioactive, just accidentally done (i.e., Chernobyl). I'd stretch the suspicion from growing areas to things that may have been out and exposed. You know perfectly well, if illegal stuff was exposed, the dealers will still sell it. There's no money in drugs that are thrown away.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  4. Wow. Like that's costing them $10K retail. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Congratulations to Knome on a PR scheme that's getting them mainstream advertising for almost no money. I haven't seen this much bogosity from actual scientists since they shot John Glenn into space to "learn about the effects on space on old people".

    I'm sure they'll find the drug abuse resistance gene in no time. (Which seems like a really priority scientific endeavor.)

    Will their next genetic decoding involve LiLo? TMZ wants to know.

  5. If you play it backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    then implant it into an organism, you get a clone of Satan.

    Now that I think about it, I remember some fanatics saying that the antichrist will be born in a test tube.

  6. Better idea by lyinhart · · Score: 5, Funny

    Should've chosen Keith Richards. Man's practically indestructible. If we could reverse engineer him, we'd have a genetically perfect superarmy.

    --
    Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
    1. Re:Better idea by jamesh · · Score: 4, Funny

      Should've chosen Keith Richards. Man's practically indestructible. If we could reverse engineer him, we'd have a genetically perfect superarmy.

      An army that's only useful for an attack on the playboy mansion or a large alcohol factory.

    2. Re:Better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      An army that's only useful for an attack on the playboy mansion or a large alcohol factory.

      That'd be a hell of lot more entertaining than most of what's on TV.

    3. Re:Better idea by GaryOlson · · Score: 4, Funny

      An army that's only useful for an attack on the playboy mansion or a large alcohol factory.

      Depriving the opposing forces of necessary supplies is an effective tactic.

      --
      Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
    4. Re:Better idea by H0p313ss · · Score: 3, Funny

      Should've chosen Keith Richards. Man's practically indestructible. If we could reverse engineer him, we'd have a genetically perfect superarmy.

      An army that's only useful for an attack on the playboy mansion or a large alcohol factory.

      You make that sound like a bad thing.

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
  7. Chuck Norris? by AffidavitDonda · · Score: 5, Funny

    What about Chucks genome? he is indestructible and, after all, he invented genetics, didn't he? But maybe his genome would be too complicated for research...

  8. you dunnnowhattyertalkin by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    bouymen didi surviveorSURVIVEDidunno WHAT yourtryinto saybout me MAN survival im striving surviving man i dunnowhatyer talking someone wheres my drin i said ineed mydrinkwhered didiput the keyys

    SHARRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:you dunnnowhattyertalkin by kiwijapan · · Score: 3, Funny

      " Ozzy Osbourne To Be Genetically Decoded" So that's why we can't understand what he's saying .... it's all encoded. Doesn't seem that complicated a code though; I'm pretty sure one of the boffins at Bletchley Park could figure it out in a few days ... (former) President G.W. Bush on the other hand - there's a challenge that would stump even the geniuses over at the NSA.

    2. Re:you dunnnowhattyertalkin by mjwx · · Score: 4, Funny

      bouymen didi surviveorSURVIVEDidunno WHAT yourtryinto saybout me MAN survival im striving surviving man i dunnowhatyer talking someone wheres my drin i said ineed mydrinkwhered didiput the keyys

      This is the sound of your average Yorkie, sober.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    3. Re:you dunnnowhattyertalkin by sorak · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's cruel. Trying to decode random noise will make you go mad.

  9. Concentrations by Dachannien · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't think Ozzy absorbs drugs anymore. After all, osmosis only works for moving stuff from high to low concentrations.

  10. This isn't the only reason he was chosen by dmomo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm sure publicity is the number one reason. For Ozzy or Knome? I'm not sure. But I can tell you that if they wanted a candidate who has taken great "bodily abuse" from drugs or whatever, they'd have no trouble finding one who isn't a high profile personality.

  11. Science geek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is A-C-G-T. This is A-C-G-T on drugs.

  12. Re:Huh? by Scubaraf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Retarded headline. It would be as valid to analyze his iPhone to see how electronics deal with toxins. Sequencing his genome is a publicity stunt. Nothing more.

  13. I Don't Know... by jd2112 · · Score: 3, Funny

    But I'd take a Shot in the Dark that it doesn't take Perry Mason to tell that these scientist were riding the Crazy Train. There'll be No More Tears once we learn for certain that The Long Road to Nowhere really does lead to him...

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    1. Re:I Don't Know... by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Funny

      I Don't Wanna Stop you but Fools Like You are Time After Time coming up with these lame puns.

  14. the problem with chuck norris's genes by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    is that they would take the electrophoresis gel, slurp it down like jello, then spit it out as diamond bullets at the researchers. then it would take the southern blot, kick it so hard it would turn into a northern, western and eastern blot and actually blot out the word "southern" from all maps ever printed

    finally, his genes, when put in the polymerase chain reaction, would replicate uncontrollably, each new sequence of chuck norris genes gaining umpteenth levels of mystical levels of martial arts power, until the polymerase chain reaction would actually set off a runaway nuclear chain reaction. the upside of this nuclear chain reaction is that it would create elements never before seen by man, and when overhearing some of the physicists from down the hall the biochemists hurriedly call into their lab that these new elements are supposed to be unstable, chuck norris's genes would be so insulted they would spontaneously stabilize every single radioactive element in the known universe, then spontaneously rewrite the fundamental laws of nature so that radioactivity itself ceased to exist

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  15. Not their first choice by Darth_brooks · · Score: 4, Funny

    They wanted to decode Lemmy from Motorhead first, but all of the samples they took came back as being a mixture of Whiskey, Amphetamines, and some sort of superhuman white blood cells that not only could fend off any currently known STD but also had a nasty habit of smashing test tubes and threatening lab assistants.

    Lemmy > Ozzy.

    --
    There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    1. Re:Not their first choice by DryGrian · · Score: 3, Funny

      Trick question! Lemmy is God! GTFO!

      --
      For optimal comment enjoyment, take red pill now.
  16. Re:Wow. Like that's costing them $10K retail. by joeflies · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Will their next genetic decoding involve LiLo? TMZ wants to know.

    Why would anyone want to genetically decode LiLo? Isn't everyone using Grub by now?

  17. Re:Huh? by jd · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's not just =a= publicity stunt, it's a publicity stunt that will have tens of thousands of screaming rock fans getting sequenced, and will have preachers claim that if you play the DNA backwards over some iron filings, you can hear "The soda's in the fridge, all hail the antichrist" repeatedly.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  18. Re:Comparative genomics by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now they can compare his DNA to Kary Mullis and see where (if at all) they differ.

    One's a raving lunatic who once did great things under the influence of massive amounts of mind-altering substances, then burned himself out completely and has since turned into a sad shell of his former self ...
     
    ... and the other's an old rock star.

    (They're cops.)

    ((Coming this fall to FOX.))

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  19. I wonder.... by coolgeek · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do you think they'll find any blood in his drugstream?

    --

    cat /dev/null >sig
  20. I want my DNA decoded too.. by UBfusion · · Score: 2, Insightful

    because I think metal, eat metal, breathe metal and metal is runnin' around my brain. I want to know the exact mutations Ozzy has caused in my DNA (for free of course, cause during the decades I've paid the required fees embedded in the 45ers, LPs, CDs, VHS, Betamax and DVDs of His Divine Music.)

    I also want my kids examined, because I fear that I've not been a good father and some of these mutations have escaped me (my son worships Shakira and my daughter is hooked on some weird German punk group called Johann Sebastian Bach). Amen.

  21. Re:Ozzy osbourne, marilyn manson. the 'scare' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Manson is pop, he's hardly a logical legacy for Ozzy. Manson is one step further down the wierd train than Lady GaGa, and it's not a big step.

  22. Idealists! Sheesh! by celtic_hackr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You have a very idealized version of drug use's "Good Ole' Days". There really weren't any. To begin with, the first Federal prohibition against drugs didn't come until 1914, ... The high water mark for addiction in this country was between the Civil War and right before WWI. Between 2 and 5 percent of the population was addicted to drugs. And I mean really addicted. Do you know who helped cause this? Dirty street pushers? Columbian gangs? No.

    Doctors.

    That's right, our biggest addiction rates came from the men in "clean white coats".... but it was all legal. After morphine became widely available, doctors so overused opiates for even minor patient problems that addiction became common. You could literally go the hospital with a middling ailment and come home addicted to morphine.

    ...

    You have a very idealized notion of American history, and an odd definition of doctors, and a very warped perception of the 60s and 70s.

    First off, most of the "medicines" you mention in the 1800s were discovered by doctors and scientists, but produced by both reputable companies and charlatan con artists. Not to mention many addictive drugs were simply added to food stuffs to give them an extra boost. Addiction in children and housewives and men was not so much abuse by the doctors but greed by legitimate companies and all manner of small time cheats. Sure doctors were far too liberal in using these new miracle drugs, and.some doctors were unethical with them also. But I blame simple greed most. Drugs were everywhere, and in almost every commercial product.

    Secondly, in the sixties and seventies the popular drugs were by and far professionally produced drugs. Many of which were legal until the seventies. LSD was legal when it first hit the street scene and remained so for several years. So, before you go off spouting history, learn it first. I lived through the sixties and seventies, I was there. A firsthand witness. I can personally vouch that the majority of drugs in the sixties and seventies were produced by corporations, and not in people's basements. Sure there was some of that, but those were a small minority.