Suspended animation.
Zombie Dogs
Just as dogs preceded humans in making the first risky
voyages into space, a new generation of canines has now
made an equally path-breaking trip -- from life to death
and back again.
In a series of experiments, doctors at the Safar Center
for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh
managed to plunge several dogs into a state of total, clinical
death before bringing them back to the land of the living. The
feat, the researchers say, points the way toward a time when
human beings will make a similar trip, not as a matter of
ghoulish curiosity but as a means of preserving life in the
face of otherwise fatal injuries.
(excerpt)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/zombie-dogs.html
Michael, you ask a very interesting question, "Did Finney write his
story as a homage to Simak?"
Who knows?
Thank you,
--
Don Kuenz KB7RPU
He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an
inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of
compassion and sacrifice and endurance. - William Faulkner