Ron Cowen is a science writer and editor in PML. He was a staff reporter, specializing in astronomy and physics, for 21 years at Science News magazine. As a freelance writer, he's written for Scientific American, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, National Geographic and the news sections of Science and Nature. Topics have ranged from the discovery of an 1889 wax cylinder recording of the voice of Otto von Bismarck to the origin of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Cowen has twice won the American Astronomical Society's science writing award in solar physics and the Society's David Schramm science writing award for feature articles on high-energy astrophysics. Cowen has also received the American Institute of Physics' excellence in science writing award and the annual science writing award from the American Acoustical Society. He has a Master's in physics from the University of Maryland. A complete list of his articles is at roncowen.com.