I just paid $870 in medical bills (after Medicare) in six weeks. My faith in Australia’s public health is crushed

It is incredibly isolating haemorrhaging cash to healthcare – while literally haemorrhaging with endometriosis. And I know I’m not alone

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That’ll be $400, the receptionist says coolly at the gynaecologist.

My card hits the machine with a dull clack.

GP long consultation fee: $198; $84.90 Medicare rebate.

Gynaecologist: $350; $78.05 Medicare rebate.

Ultrasound: $350; $90.50 Medicare rebate.

Psychiatrist: $340 for half-hour checkin; $130.85 benefit.

Dietician: $222.95; and they insisted I buy two supplements for $100.

Pelvic physio (two visits): $95 per half-hour session ($190) and pelvic floor exercise product for $68.

CBD oil: $155 out of pocket, not covered by the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS).

Published: November 20, 2025, 2:00 pm

She was pregnant and addicted to fentanyl. Getting to keep her baby saved them both

A baby is born in withdrawal every 18 minutes in the US, and most end up in foster care. At centers like Maddie’s Place, mothers stay with their infants – and leave together, in recovery

Eight months pregnant and in pain, Stephanie Rosell went to the Holy family hospital emergency room after an infection began spreading up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, estranged from her family, she lived in a shed she had built in a friend’s yard. She was also addicted to fentanyl.

As doctors treated her infection, she began to panic. Withdrawal was setting in. She leaned over the bed and vomited.

Published: November 20, 2025, 12:56 pm

Hold an ice cube – and shake like a dog: therapists on 16 simple, surprising ways to beat stress

It can cause physiological and emotional problems, but none of us can avoid it entirely. Here are some of the best ways to react when stress hormones start coursing through your body ...

Most people contend with stress in some element of their lives. What can you do when you are overwhelmed by it and your coping mechanisms no longer seem to work? Here, psychotherapists share their techniques for managing in the moment, seeking help, and minimising everyday stress.

Published: November 20, 2025, 5:00 am

My ex is having an affair with another soccer mum and I feel complicit. Do I tell the husband or keep it quiet? | Leading questions

They probably underestimate the cost to you of keeping this secret, writes Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Before you tell the husband, could you talk to your ex?

• Read more Leading questions

I left my ex-husband two and a half years ago. He told me the day we broke up that he had feelings for a married woman and she for him. I knew. It was part of the reason I wanted to leave him, along with a very long list of ways in which our marriage was no longer serving either of us.

A few months later he started actively (but covertly) pursuing this woman, who is a mum in my son’s sports team. Apart from my ex and this woman, I am pretty sure I am the only person who knows.

Published: November 20, 2025, 11:04 pm

‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI

Staffordshire students say signs material was AI-generated included suspicious file names and rogue voiceover accent

Students at the University of Staffordshire have said they feel “robbed of knowledge and enjoyment” after a course they hoped would launch their digital careers turned out to be taught in large part by AI.

James and Owen were among 41 students who took a coding module at Staffordshire last year, hoping to change careers through a government-funded apprenticeship programme designed to help them become cybersecurity experts or software engineers.

Published: November 20, 2025, 11:18 am

French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI

X chatbot suggested gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ‘designed for disinfection’ not mass executions

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French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday night it was expanding an existing inquiry into Musk’s social media platform, X, to include the “Holocaust-denying comments”, which remained online for three days.

Published: November 20, 2025, 2:09 pm

‘We excel at every phase of AI’: Nvidia CEO quells Wall Street fears of AI bubble amid market selloff

Jensen Huang opens earnings call with attempt to dispel concerns after his $5tn firm beat Wall Street expectations

Global share markets rose after Nvidia posted third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates, assuaging for now concerns about whether the high-flying valuations of AI firms had peaked.

On Wednesday, all eyes were on Nvidia, the bellwether for the AI industry and the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, with analysts and investors hoping the chipmaker’s third-quarter earnings would dampen fears that a bubble was forming in the sector.

Published: November 20, 2025, 3:36 am

The best early Black Friday deals in the UK on the products we love, from coffee machines to heated throws

We’ve cut through the noise to find genuinely good early Black Friday 2025 discounts on Filter-recommended products across home, kitchen and beauty

• Big savings – or big regrets? How to shop smart this Black Friday

Like Christmas Day, Black Friday has long since ceased to be a mere “day”. Yuletide now seems to start roughly when Strictly does, and Black Friday kicked off around Halloween, judging by the landfill of exclamation-marked emails weighing down my inbox.

Black Friday is a devil worth dancing with if you want to save money on products you’ve had your eye on – and it can pay to start dancing now. Some of the Filter’s favourite items are already floating around at prices clearly designed to make them sell out fast. Other deals won’t land until the big day itself on 28 November, or even until the daftly named Cyber Monday (1 December).

Published: November 20, 2025, 8:20 pm

How to avoid bad Black Friday laptop deals – and some of the best UK offers for 2025

Here’s how to spot a genuinely good laptop deal, plus the best discounts we’ve seen so far on everything from MacBooks to gaming laptops

• Do you really need to buy a new laptop?
• How to shop smart this Black Friday

Black Friday deals have started, and if you’ve been on the lookout for a good price on a new laptop, then this could be your lucky day. But with so many websites being shouty about their Black Friday offers, the best buys aren’t always easy to spot. So before you splash the cash, it might pay to do some research – and look closely at the specification.

I know this may not be welcome advice. After all, the thought of drawing up a spreadsheet of memory configurations and pricing history might put a slight dampener on the excitement that builds as Black Friday approaches. But buy the right laptop today and you can look forward to many years of joyful productivity. Pick a duff one, and every time you open the lid you’ll be cursing your past self’s impulsive nature. So don’t get caught out; be prepared with our useful tips – and a roundup of the Filter’s favourite laptop deals.

Published: November 20, 2025, 5:44 pm

The 15 best tech gifts in the US, picked by a gadget reviewer who’s used hundreds

From Apple AirPods to VR headsets and the ultimate travel backpack for hauling gadgets, these are the tech gifts they’ll still be using years from now

• The 18 best Black Friday deals – plus picks for travel, home and kitchen

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Tech enthusiasts can be notoriously picky to buy for: they have strong opinions about brands, operating systems, even standards like surround-sound formats. And the tech world moves fast. As a tech reviewer, many products that I pick up to evaluate are put back down simply never used again. Something better comes along.

But there are products that buck the trend and stick around. As someone who is surrounded by tech, I’ve rounded up the gadgets that are so perpetually useful, I find myself reaching for them all the time. So don’t give up on surprising the techie in your life: their next favorite toy may just be on this list.

Published: November 20, 2025, 3:48 pm

How to avoid bad Black Friday TV deals – and some of the best UK offers for 2025

We’ve rounded up the best early Black Friday TV deals, from 50in OLEDs and small smart TVs to big-name brands like Samsung and LG

• Do you really need to buy a new TV?
• How to shop smart this Black Friday

When it comes to buying a new TV during Black Friday, careful prep and a canny eye for detail are everything. Sometimes that big-screen bargain isn’t quite the steal you might think, and even if the price is right, niggling problems could sour long-term satisfaction.

And it may be that you don’t need a new TV at all – don’t let the Black Friday FOMO fool you. Read our guide to making the most out of the TV you already have.

Published: November 20, 2025, 12:46 pm

Xania Monet’s music is the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully her AI ‘clankers’ will be limited to this cultural moment | Van Badham

While a robot pop star may be novelty now, young people are maturing with a scorn for generic digital products

Xania Monet is the latest digital nightmare to emerge from a hellscape of AI content production. No wonder she’s popular … but how long will it last?

The music iteration of AI “actor” Tilly Norwood, Xania is a composite product manufactured of digital tools: in this case, a photorealistic avatar accompanied by a sound that computers have generated to resemble that of a human voice singing words.

Published: November 20, 2025, 10:59 pm

Moss in space: spores survive nine-month ride on outside of ISS

Scientists say plant’s resilience suggests it could help with oxygen generation or soil formation on space missions

Matt Damon grew potatoes for survival in The Martian, but researchers say mosses could one day help turn the dust and rocks of other planets into fertile soil.

Physcomitrella patens, or spreading earthmoss, is already known as a pioneering species – albeit for being an early plant on the scene in areas of barren mud. Now researchers have found that spores of the moss can survive for at least nine months stuck to the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and still reproduce once back on Earth.

Published: November 20, 2025, 4:00 pm

‘Chunks of earth just disappear’: life on a collapsing island – podcast

As the Cop30 climate talks continue in Brazil, Madeleine Finlay hears about a landscape at the opposite end of the planet facing the direct impacts of the climate crisis. The Guardian reporter Leyland Cecco recounts a recent trip to Qikiqtaruk (also known as Herschel Island) off the coast of Canada’s Yukon territory, where he saw first hand how indigenous groups and scientists are reckoning with an ecosystem collapsing into the sea. He tells Madeleine about efforts to preserve the history of the island and how scientists are racing to understand what it means for the fate of other arctic communities.

‘The land is tearing itself apart’: life on a collapsing Arctic isle

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Published: November 20, 2025, 5:00 am

Nasa releases close-up pictures of comet flying by from another star system

The interstellar visitor, known as 3I/Atlas, will be seen just in this instance, never to come back again

Nasa released close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that’s making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas is only the third confirmed object to visit our corner of the cosmos from another star. It zipped harmlessly past Mars last month.

Published: November 20, 2025, 12:40 am

Pinprick blood test could detect disease 10 years before symptoms appear, study finds

Molecular profiles will give detailed snapshot of person’s physiology and predict diseases from diabetes to cancer and dementia

The world’s largest study into key substances in the bloodstream has paved the way for a swathe of pinprick tests that can detect early signs of disease more than a decade before symptoms appear, researchers say.

Work on the tests follows the completion of a project by UK Biobank to measure the levels of nearly 250 different proteins, sugars, fats and other compounds in blood collected from half a million volunteers.

Published: November 20, 2025, 12:01 am

Electroconvulsive therapy may have more adverse effects than thought

Study calls for depression treatment to be suspended for more research after reports of heart problems and emotional blunting

Electroconvulsive therapy could be causing a wider range of adverse effects when used to treat depression than previously understood, according to a paper that calls for the practice to be suspended pending more robust research.

Although short- and long-term memory loss is widely known to result from ECT, the research identified 25 further concerning side effects, which included cardiovascular problems, fatigue and emotional blunting.

Published: November 20, 2025, 12:01 am

The man who froze his wife and got a new girlfriend: a stranger, sadder tale than I expected | Imogen West-Knights

The story has sparked debates about cryogenics and fidelity. But it also tells us something deeper about our responses to loss

One of the last remaining fun things about the internet is getting to pass judgment on the goings-on in households that you would never hear about otherwise. On Reddit, for instance, there is a whole thriving sub for just this purpose called Am I the Asshole?, where people describe conflicts from their lives and ask strangers to adjudicate on them.

This week, a story on the BBC threw up a particularly juicy piece of other people’s business that has been sparking debates on Chinese social media. It starts in 2017, when Gui Junmin decided to cryogenically freeze his wife, Zhan Wenlian, after she died of lung cancer. She was the first Chinese person to undergo this procedure, which was paid for by a science research institute in Jinan, east China, that agreed with Gui to preserve his wife’s body for 30 years. Reports suggest Zhan herself consented to the process before she passed away.

Imogen West-Knights is a writer and journalist

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Published: November 20, 2025, 3:55 pm