Azinet Press provides
some educational and general-interest ebooks for free. Here is a list of
free science ebooks available in formats to fit many e-reader devices as
well as PDF format for reading on a computer or tablet.
In general, the PDF format has
better layout properties and appearance if your reader has a large enough
screen for PDF documents in 8.5 X 11 inch format. All of these books are
available for access through the in-reader stores for Kindle, Apple, Sony,
and Kobo e-reader devices:
This short book provides an
overview of biological aging theories including history, current status,
major scientific controversies, and implications for the future of medicine.
Major topics include: human mortality as a function of age, aging mechanisms
and processes, the programmed vs. non-programmed aging controversy,
empirical evidence on aging, and the feasibility of anti-aging and
regenerative medicine.
Why do we age? How do we age? These
questions have baffled scientists for centuries and remain unresolved. The
answer to the “how” question is critical to our ability to successfully
prevent and treat age-related diseases like cancer and heart disease that
now cause the majority of all deaths in the developed world. Because of
major difficulties in directly experimentally determining causes of aging,
the answer to the “why” question is critical to guiding research efforts
directed toward identifying and altering processes involved in age-related
diseases.
Evolution theory plays a critical role in the “why” issue because it
attempts to explain why each living organism has its particular design and
therefore why different species display different aging characteristics and
different life spans.
This short book describes the history and current status of attempts to
explain why we age extending from Darwin’s 1859 theory to the present day.
The author provides colorful and interesting descriptions of the theorists,
their theories, the discoveries and the controversies that have led us to
the current situation: Although there is very wide scientific agreement
about most aspects of evolution theory, four different theories now exist
concerning the fine details that apply to aging. These four theories lead to
radically different concepts regarding the actual biological mechanisms
behind the aging process and consequently the mechanisms behind age-related
diseases.
For most of the
past century, it was widely thought that delaying the
human aging process was scientifically impossible. More
recently, it has become increasingly clear that delaying
aging is not only possible but a near-term reality. This
book describes how theories of biological aging have
evolved to support anti-aging medicine and summarizes
the steadily increasing experimental evidence confirming
that slowing the aging process is medically feasible.
These developments are leading to fundamental changes in
the way we think of age-related diseases like cancer and
heart disease.
The author goes on to describe possible approaches to
finding anti-aging agents and ways modern technology,
including the Internet, could be applied to the search.
Amazon has a hidden price category, $0-$0, that denotes
completely free Kindle books (not just free for Amazon Prime customers)
including many modern science and medical books on biology, biochemistry,
medicine, gerontology, and evolution. An increasing number of free educational
books is available including textbooks for K-12 and college level biology,
chemistry, and physics. Amazon also has hidden keywords to select (mostly) no
classics, no public domain (pre-1923) books, only English language books, and no
books that are merely excerpts. Note that these Amazon book searches will
sometimes list a few non-free titles because Amazon is continuously doing
short-time free promotions (a few days each) of many books and the free list may
have been compiled before the price changed back. The free books listed by these
searches will therefore change dramatically from day to day. After you click on
one of the following links and display the first page of free books, you can
further refine your search by subject category (e.g. biological sciences,
chemistry, Earth sciences, astronomy and space science, nature and ecology,
agricultural sciences, and technology). From the
search results page you can click on a book and then do a one-click "purchase" to
send the book to all of your Kindle devices. Check to be sure it is actually
free "Kindle price: $0.00" before clicking.