Here's something that's keeping the researchers at Harvard Medical School awake at night: They've just found that sleep deprivation is now costing U.S. businesses $63.2 billion a year in lost productivity. As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, the research showed that chronic exhaustion makes employees much less efficient, even adding to the time it takes them to read their email. It also makes them more peevish, less collegial, more likely to blow a gasket. Even at Harvard, probably. All of this conspires to hamstring the economy.
deprivation：剥夺，损失，免职 chronic：慢性的，长期的，习惯性的 exhaustion：枯竭，耗尽，精疲力尽
peevish：易怒的，暴躁的，脾气坏的 blow a gasket：勃然大怒，发脾气 conspire：同谋
Were an epidemic of sleep deprivation the only problem facing this embattled nation, we could probably resolve the matter quickly. It is not. Over the past several years, state, government-sponsored and private surveys have shown that idling in traffic costs Americans $115 billion a year, being late results in a $90 billion hit, and treating obesity sucks up $147 billion annually. All this seems to suggest that we could hack a huge chunk out of the federal deficit by getting more sleep, carpooling, taking public transportation, setting our clocks correctly and cutting back on the bacon double-cheeseburgers. With fries.
epidemic：流行病，风尚，传染病 embattled：严阵以待的，心烦意乱的 suck up：吸收
federal：联邦的 deficit：赤字，亏损，逆差 carpooling：拼车
Alas, even that would not be enough. Many other reliable scientific studies out there document the degree to which seemingly harmless activities exert a negative pull on the economy. Here are just a few examples:
exert：运用，发挥，施以影响
1. Cats with issues cost the nation $37.7 billion a year. According to experts on feline-related productivity sappage, as much as a third of employee absenteeism results from having to take a sick cat to the vet, or consoling a distraught cat, or just staying home and making a sensitive, high-strung cat feel wanted. That's without even getting into dogs, parakeets, goldfish, ferrets. Worse still, the guilt an employee feels after lying about the reason for calling in sick -- Uncle Vinnie's second funeral this year, a boiler explosion, scarlet fever -- makes him less likely to function properly for the next few days.
absenteeism：旷工，旷课，怠工 console：控制，安慰 distraught：发狂的，心烦意乱的
high-strung：高度紧张的，敏感的，容易兴奋的 scarlet fever：猩红热
2. Tweeting costs the nation $112 billion a year. Forget Facebook; time-management buffs increasingly regard Twitter as the silent productivity killer. That includes time spent tweeting and reading other people's tweets, and time lost at work because of thieves breaking into employees' empty houses after reading their jubilant tweets from St. Croix.
3. Retweeting costs the economy an additional $65.6 billion.
4. Transferring vinyl LPs to serviceable MP3 files costs the nation $11.7 billion a year. This is a shocker, but baby boomers are really serious about this stuff. Preserving the audio quality of Pink Floyd's 'The Dark Side of the Moon,' 'Led Zeppelin IV' and Carole King's 'Tapestry' alone results in a $2.6 billion annual drag on the U.S. economy.
5. Grumpy co-workers cost the economy $26.8 billion every year. Maybe they're sleep-deprived, maybe they have bad backs, maybe they're still fuming over those nasty tweets their ex-spouses put out there, but this is a scientific fact.
grumpy：脾气坏的人，爱抱怨的人
6. The time Americans spend listening to banjo music now exerts a $13.7 billion drag on the economy. This thing just came out of nowhere. This does not include time spent listening to the mandolin, the fiddle or the ukulele. This retro, rootsy music craze has just brought this country to its knees. Some observers believe that excessive affection for banjo music and sleep deprivation and co-worker grumpiness may be connected. Especially if employees bring banjos to the office.
retro：复古的 rootsy：朴实的，地道的
7. Not carrying an umbrella costs the U.S. $35.6 billion a year. Pretty obvious, that one. Or so you would think. But because umbrellas are bulky and easily lost and a bit unfashionable, lots of American workers never carry them. And then they wonder why they get sick.
bulky：庞大的，笨重的
8. This falls under the general rubric of foolishly ignoring maternal advice. According to some experts, not paying attention to what your mother told you when you were 6 now costs the American economy $132.7 billion a year.
Not listening to Dad? $123,000. Again, no big surprise there.