User:LeonelRJ

About Me

My name is Leonel Rangel Jimenez, though I prefer to go by Leo, and I use he/him/his pronouns. As a Durhamite, I am really excited to be a part of Duke's Class of 2023. After all, it means I get to bug my younger siblings from time to time (truly a Blue Devil at heart). I am currently thinking of the BME track here at Duke and am currently in EGR103, the reason this page came into existence. I hope you enjoy learning more about me in this section! Here are a few things I think are pretty cool along with some awesome things I've had the opportunity to do:

• Turtles/Tortoises!! They are my favorite animal, and I was incredibly lucky to get to see huge versions of both when I traveled to the Galapagos!
• Favorite color: Green, it's just got that nature vibe, ya feel?
• Favorite food? Trick question, I just love food
  • BUT, ice-cream has a special place in my stomach heart
• I traveled to Italy wayyyy back in 7th grade, Narni and Venice were probably my favorites (runner up: Capri. I fell asleep on the boat there, though that 's probably my favorite nap ever)
• I've taken Latin since 6th grade, though I will no longer while at Duke. My favorite quote? "Dum Spiro, Spero" -Motto of South Carolina (meaning "While I Breathe I Hope")

Feel free to ask me about any of the above personally! I'm always open to making new friends!

Galapagos Tortoise I got to see close up!

Swimming boi! They are HUGE

This is about as cool as I get, we like finding photo spots

Grand Challenges Article

U.S. Intelligence Agencies Try to Reverse Engineer a Rat Brain, David Cassel, The New Stack, 7 Jun 2017 9:00 AM, accessed 18 September 2019 10:40 PM (Reverse-Engineer the Brain)

This article's coolest aspects are probably the sections where they describe just exactly how they go about "slic[ing] [the rat brain] into 33,000 strips, each one just 30 nanometers wide, captured with tape strips and delivered to silicon wafers" for the sake of getting the most detailed view of the brain. Furthermore, the best line in the article may just be “It may be much easier to engineer the brain than to understand it.” — George Church, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. This quote just goes to show that reverse-engineering the brain doesn't mean we have to understand how it all works. Interesting...Enjoy the read!