Ozzy Osbourne To Be Genetically Decoded

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."

Comments

The secret to his DNA revealed

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:The secret to his DNA revealed

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Survived?

[JorDan Clock]

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

Re:Survived?

[blair1q]

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."

Re:Survived?

[interkin3tic]

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

Re:Survived?

[sg_oneill]

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."

Re:Survived?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

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

Re:Survived?

[JanneM]

"is he being decoded as well?"

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

Re:Survived?

[BluBrick]

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

Re:Survived?

[CAIMLAS]

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.

Re:Survived?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Survived?

[hitmark]

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

Re:Survived?

[DesScorp]

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.

Re:Survived?

[fractoid]

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?

Re:Survived?

[damienl451]

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.

Do they have any of his old DNA

[blair1q]

Do they have any of Ozzy's old DNA?

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

Re:Do they have any of his old DNA

[interkin3tic]

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.

Re:Do they have any of his old DNA

[jamesh]

Retroviruses would work

Retroviruses are so last-century.

Re:Do they have any of his old DNA

[JWSmythe]

    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.

Re:Do they have any of his old DNA

[JWSmythe]

There's a lot of DNA

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

Re:Do they have any of his old DNA

[Kaeso]

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...

Wow. Like that's costing them $10K retail.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Better idea

[lyinhart]

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

Re:Better idea

[jamesh]

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.

Re:Better idea

[GaryOlson]

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.

Chuck Norris?

[AffidavitDonda]

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...

you dunnnowhattyertalkin

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:you dunnnowhattyertalkin

[mjwx]

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.

Concentrations

[Dachannien]

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

the problem with chuck norris's genes

[circletimessquare]

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

Not their first choice

[Darth_brooks]

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.