Martians, Murderers, and mStatistians (the m is silent)
Good news, everyone! Nerd Nite is back and live from the comfort of your own couch. Join Chris Herd, Bradley King, and Amanda Hedden and get yourself inoculated against boredom on
February 25, 2021 at 7:30pm MDT!
Attendance is free and the audience is welcome to join us on video (BYOB).
Join the live video audience via Zoom
-or-
Stream live on Fringe TV
Searching for Life on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance Rover Mission
Chris Herd
The Perseverance Rover is set to touch down on Mars’ Jezero Crater on February 18th. The rover is the most capable of its kind ever sent to the Red Planet, designed to explore rocks that were formed more than three and a half billion years ago as a river flowed into Jezero Crater. Not only will the rover enable the study of the rocks from Mars—including looking for hints of ancient life—it will collect more than 20 samples of rock and soil, which will be sealed and left on the surface for later return to Earth. Perseverance is the first step to collect the samples with the ultimate goal of finding out if life ever evolved outside of the Earth.
Nerd Nite Alum Chris Herd is a planetary geology expert, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, and a returned sample scientist on the Perseverance mission.
The What, Who, and How of Fringers: A Love Letter to North America’s Largest Fringe Festival
Bradley King
Every August, Edmonton hosts North America’s largest Fringe Theatre Festival, bringing together people from around the world to create, share, and learn over a period of 11 days. Thousands gather to see hundreds of shows, a plethora of street performers and maybe enjoy a mini donut or two (dozen). The people who attend this weird, wonderful festival are called “Fringers,” and we’ve learned so much about them! Get nerdy with us while we chat about Fringers, where they come from, who they are, and how they Fringe. It’s time to take a deep dive into Fringer demographic data, to explore what we can determine from just a postal code, and to enjoy some pretty plots along the way. Bonus points if you can count the number of times we say “Fringe” during the presentation.
My Scrapbook, 1937
Amanda Hedden
Amanda Hedden of Chronic Nostalgic has been voraciously consuming and collecting vernacular photography for nearly two decades. Her primary passion is positive colour found film, but she will be cracking open a dark corner of her albums collection for Nerd Night. She’ll be discussing the joy and anguish of narratives while taking you through a mysterious scrapbook tied to a brutal true crime that gained national attention and still remains unsolved.
Contact Amanda at Chronic Nostalgic on IG and FB @chronicnostalgic