Hi, my name is Scott. I’m a former member of the behavioural ecology lab before my career took a left turn and I went to medical school. Now, as a first-year medical student, I’m going to try and apply my brand new medical knowledge to diagnosing Eurovision contestants! Ok, let’s start with Slovenia.
Upon first observation of the patient, I notice she has a very unusual style of staccato movements with rigidity and tremor. Parkinson’s perhaps, but she lacks the hallmark slow-movement bradykinesia. Or maybe she’s just trying to dance with a bad case of ataxia.
Actually her movements seem very frenetic… hmm, perhaps a psych consult may be needed? The ever-shifting patterns of the floor beneath her mirror the typical hallucination patterns of an LSD trip. Later, she starts rap-battling with what appear to be homunculi representing facets of her personality. Either she’s tripping balls or I need to read more Freud and Jung!
That said, it’s always protocol to rule out organic brain disease before diagnosing psych conditions. The flashing lights are a classic epilepsy trigger, but maybe her flapping arms are really a case of asterixis, a common sign of hepatic encephalopathy wherein liver damage harms the brain. I can’t be sure about her, but this song is driving at least one of us to drink.
One thing that stands out is the pseudobulbar vaguely-lyrical noises emanating from her vocal cords. Laryngeal edema perhaps, or polyps? Hmm, I may need to draw some blood tests.
But wait! Something I overlooked! Her hair has a strange miscoloured streak going through it. That’s called poliosis. Usually it’s just a benign quirk of hair, but maybe, just maybe… I’ve got it! She has Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada Disease. It all makes sense! The disease also causes nerve palsies, which explains her dancing, hearing loss and tinnitus, which explains her singing, and eye damage, which explains her fashion choices. Sadly, the prognosis isn’t very good. Luckily, she’s already wearing a body bag.
Review by Scott Fabricant
Hello again, Scott here. So I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to diagnose people at a distance, some ethics thing called the Goldwater Rule (which is actually why no one has yet given an ICD-10 code to President Trump), so I guess I’m going to have to brush off my behavioural ecology skills and return to my roots. Ok let’s go!
Here we see the rare and endangered Moldovan Cool Ranch Doritos… sorry, that’s DoReDos, in their natural habitat of the coastal cliffs. How these delicate diurnal creatures will adapt to being in the artificial environment of the Eurovision stage, with a photoperiod of 12 hours of dark and 12 hours of strobe lights and disco balls remains to be seen.
Given that it is in fact the female who is large and colorful, I deduce that DoReDos are likely some type of arthropod. It is of note that the female is red and yellow, so I assume she is poisonous. Her large frilled hat she deploys seems very effective at startling predators. She also has slices of citrus fruit in her hair; are these food rewards to potential mates, or is she using the citric acid to defend her eggs?
Multiple male suitors sing and chirp to get her attention. This is what we refer to as lekking behaviour. The males compete with each other, trying to best woo the female with rhythmic droning vocalizations. While its known that talk is cheap, we assume this singing behaviour is costly and therefore an honest signal because… reasons?
However, further natural history observations reveal that the males appear to be cooperative breeders. They’re helping each other into the finals! The only other known species that engages in cooperative lekking is the Long-Tailed Manakin. Are Manakins and Doritos sister taxa? Or is this a case of convergent evolution? As always, more research is needed (but not by me, I have to get back to studying).
Review by Scott Fabricant
