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Suspended animation is the technical term for the slowing without termination of life processes by external means. Outside science fiction, the technique is hypothetical. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold is used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use of this process had led to the developing science of cryonics. Placing astronauts in suspended animation has been proposed as one way for an individual to reach the end of an interplanetary or interstellar journey, avoiding the necessity for a gigantic generation ship; occasionally the two concepts have been combined, with generations of "caretakers" supervising a large population of frozen passengers. It is also a common device in fiction used to transport individuals from one time period to another.
Among the characters or works that utilize suspended animation are:
- Edward Bellamy's 1887 novel Looking Backward
- Robert Heinlein's 1957 novel The Door Into Summer
- Anne McCaffery's and Jody Lynn Nye's 1990 novel, The Death of Sleep
- Captain America, who survived the end of World War II and was revived by The Avengers in the 1960sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around
- Red Dwarf, which had one character surviving a radioactive crisis by spending three million years in stasisStasis (pronounced STAY-sis) is a science-fiction concept akin to suspended animation. Whereas suspended animation usually refers to a greatly reduced state of life processes, stasis implies a complete cessation of these processes, which can be easily res
- episode Space SeedSpace Seed is a first-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that was first broadcast on February 2, 1967. It is episode #24, written by Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilber, based on a story by Carey Wilber, and directed by Marc Daniels. The show gues and episode The Neutral Zone and episode The 37's, in which individuals from the 20th century are revived three and four centuries later, respectively
- Stargate AtlantisStargate Atlantis is a spin-off of the television series Stargate SG-1 which was based on the film Stargate ( 1994). It premiered on the US Sci Fi Channel on July 16, 2004. In this new series an outpost of the legendary city of Atlantis, a city of the cre, in which most of the Wraith were hibernating in their ship until the caretaker was killed.
- Woody Allen's movie Sleeper
- The anime Inuyasha.
- , in which three scientists are placed in suspended animation for a spaceflight of a few years' duration, the ship being tended by two living astronauts
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