Hultgreene-Curie Watch

The poor woman. She might as well be wearing a red shirt on an away team:

In a historic first, the Marine Corps plans to assign a female officer to the infantry following her anticipated graduation from its grueling training program, service officials said Thursday.

The woman is a lieutenant. She and her male colleagues in the Infantry Officer Course completed an intensive combat exercise Wednesday at the Marines’ rugged training facility in Twentynine Palms, Calif., the final graded requirement of the 13-week program.

IOC, as it’s known among Marines, is considered some of the military’s toughest training. Typically, about 25 percent of students wash out.

The woman, whose name has not been disclosed, is the first female officer to complete the course out of three dozen to have tried. She is expected to lead an infantry platoon of about 40 Marines, a trailblazing role within an organization that has been criticized for its resistance to such change and for fostering a culture of misogyny.

She has no chance. We know how this ends.

Danica Patrick, fitness model

Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with a woman who keeps herself in shape making a career as a fitness model and lifestyle guru. But it's a bit of a fall from grace from someone who was supposedly going to beat all the boys on the racetrack.

It's been a popular thought for some time that Patrick eventually would make the transition to a lifestyle career, maybe becoming some version of a Rachael Ray type. This much is true: Patrick appears capable of doing pretty much anything. She can whip up a five-course gourmet meal, pair wines, paint, and dress for either black tie events or black dirt at the race track.

Is carving out a space in the lucrative health and fitness business where she ultimately wants to be?

"Sure," she said after a long pause. "If I'm going to do all this and write a cookbook and a fitness program, I'll take this as far as I can to motivate people to be successful. The program works. I know it works."

After giving up dairy and gluten a few years ago, she really noticed the difference. She no longer would slog through a crummy afternoon and thought, "Man, today is just not my day."

"I just don't have those," she said. "The only thing that knocks me out now, sometimes, is allergies. But I don't get tired. I don't get full when I eat — and I eat all the time, too."

She is a firm believer in meal preparation, and almost always carries a cooler with healthy eating options. At Thanksgiving, she served a grain-free, dairy-free stuffing, and a cold salad of shaved brussels sprouts, toasted butternut squash and a homemade dressing.

Hey, at least she avoided becoming a victim of Hultgreen-Curie Syndrome.

Hultgreen-Curie in China

Death of China’s first female J-10 fighter pilot Yu Xu sparks call for more training

The first Chinese woman to fly a ­J-10 fighter was remembered fondly on Sunday as a “golden peacock” after her death on Saturday in an air training accident. Yu Xu, 30, died when her double-seater J-10 crashed in Hebei province. Her male co-pilot ejected in time. Yu’s classmates described her death as a “shock”, with some observers calling for higher training standards for aerobatics pilots. Yu, born in Chengdu, ­Sichuan province, was one of the 35 women recruited as trainee pilots in July 2005.

Or, you know, higher standards. Apparently Hultgreen-Curie Syndrome is cross-cultural.