Ozzy Osbourne's Genome Reveals Some Neanderthal Lineage

ByOhTek writes "CNN reports that in July, rocker Ozzy Osbourne became one of few to submit his blood to have his full genome sequenced and analyzed. The results are in, and it turns out his genome reveals some Neanderthal lineage. What does Ozzie have to say about it? 'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why,' he wrote."

Re:Wasn't there a study...

[Labcoat Samurai]

The way I've always understood the classification is that we're Homo Sapiens Sapiens, and they were Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis, meaning they were a different subspecies, not genetically different enough to prohibit interbreeding.

Re:Wasn't there a study...

[Labcoat Samurai]

The species level is intended to be roughly the level of genetic similarity where animals breed true. So if we classify them as a subspecies, our *best guess* is that we'd breed true with them.

Furthermore, this has evidently been an ongoing debate in the scientific community (I was operating from memory of college anthropology earlier, but I went and did a little poking around just now), and the school that classifies them as Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis is absolutely saying that interbreeding is possible.

And the presence of Neanderthal DNA in modern humans seems to suggest they are right.

Re:Rich

[koona]

"No one buys a bottle of wine and dies because it's extra potent." Na, yer rong. Up here in Canada we got a pseudo sherry thing called (x' ) 74. Dilution 1::2 required. All us beside the tracks winos know that 2 solid weeks of this shit will kill you. yours, as a survivor douglas the x'r copyright considerations prohibit me publishing the identity of (x')