This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Got my DNA report results back a couple of weeks ago. It's taken me time to go through everything that is wrong with me. The results are not encouraging.

On a dare from a BYU professor (who bet me lunch that he had more Neanderthal DNA than me), I sent $99 to 23andMe (23andme.com), a company that tests DNA.

I learned more than I should. The idea was to prove the professor wrong. It wasn't to scare myself.

First the good news. 23andMe did not report any active criminal cases involving my DNA. Nobody seems interested in me for a felony that I don't recall committing. Nor have FBI agents Mulder and Scully shown up with a large net and a tranquilizer gun.

Submitting the sample couldn't have been simpler. 23andMe mailed a DNA kit to my house. I drooled into a small vial and sent it back in the postage paid box it came in.

Admittedly I was tempted to mail back some dog saliva or rat squeezings instead, but the joke wasn't worth $100. I'd only have to spend another 100 bucks to get the real results, and no way was I going to take a chance that the results would come back nearly identical.

Overall, there were no real surprises in what came back. Racially, it's impossible for me to be anymore Caucasian. I'm 99.8 percent European. Of the 99.8 percent European, I am 95.2 percent northwestern European.

It's the breakdown from here that makes me nervous and probably explains a lot. If history has proven anything, it's that some DNA should never be mixed.

Of the 95.2 percent northwestern European, 43.6 percent of it is a mix of British and Irish, and 16.2 percent is French and German. There's a dab (7.6 percent) of Scandinavian throw in. Hell, no wonder I'm self-destructive. With that kind of genetic stew, it's amazing that I'm still alive.

Finally, there's 27.8 percent of me that is "broadly northwestern European," which is just another way of scientifically saying "Euro-mutt."

Most of this I could have guessed. My genealogy climbs back down the family tree to these particular areas, so it's really no surprise that I'm not, say, 39 percent Nepalese or 72.1 percent Zulu.

That's not to say that there weren't some head-scratching revelations. For example, I'm among 61 percent of 23andMe customers who can smell the asparagus metabolite in my pee.

I'm not trying to be funny. The report comes right out and says that. I'm also among the 61 percent of customers who aren't likely to sneeze when they come out of a dark room and into bright sunlight.

The report calls this a Photic sneeze. I have no idea why. It's probably ancient Norse for, "Oh, photic! I got it all over me!"

Eighty-six percent of customers like me have ring fingers that are longer than our index fingers, 88 percent of us do not have cleft chins, and 90 percent of us have wet ear wax.

My skin color, like 95 percent of customers with my genetics, is "fair to beige." From now on, I am "beige." I'm joining my beige brothers and sisters in standing up to the minorities who would put us down.

OK, now for the important bet-settling information. Somewhere in my ancestral line was a modern human drunk enough to not use precautions. My "Neanderthal ancestry accounts for less than 4 percent" of my overall DNA.

Just looking at me you can tell which part of my DNA is dominant. It certainly comes out in what I write.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.