Local Tech Will Help Sequence Ozzy's Amazingly Vice-Resistant Genome

By Ian S. Port Tue., Jun. 29 2010 at 8:40 AM

Categories: Tech

Pin It

Richard Haick

"Do not underestimate the anti-aging powers of bat heads": Ozzy Osbourne at a book signing in SF

Ozzy Osbourne, who is now -- wait for it -- a health columnist for the Sunday Times of London, wants to know exactly how it is he's so (relatively) well survived illegal drugs, booze, legal drugs, more illegal drugs, his wife Sharon, more booze, playing in rock 'n' roll bands for more than 40 years, and eating the head off a bat. (He really shouldn't be alive, right?) A company called Life Technologies, which grew out of Foster City's Applied Biosystems, will help him find out, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

The sequencing of one's genome normally costs $65,000, but Ozzy's getting his done for free. This is good. The human race owes itself a detailed account of how this misfit of a man has avoided kicking the bucket while so thoroughly abusing himself. As quoted by the Business Times:

"By all accounts, I'm a medical miracle," Osbourne wrote in his "Ask Dr. Ozzy" column. "I was knocking back four bottles of cognac a day. While filming The Osbournes, I was shoving 42 types of prescription medication down my neck, and that was before all the dope I was smoking. And then there was the rabies treatment I had to go through after eating a bat."

Maybe bats are just really nutritious?

Follow us @SFAllShookDown

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.