Doyle Northrup, 85, a physicist who detected the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb explosion in 1949, died Dec. 15 at a nursing center in Melbourne, Fla. He lived in nearby Satellite Beach. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained scientist was assigned in 1948 to a top-secret project to test radioactivity in air samples from planes and to monitor seismographs to watch for Soviet weapons testing. In the 1950s, he was the scientific adviser to the American delegation in Geneva at negotiations to ban nuclear testing and to control weapons.

Dame Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, whose 80-year career as an actress continued until recently when she appeared in a television film, died Monday at her home in Essex, England, two days after her 101st birthday. During her long and acclaimed stage career, she played most of the Shakespearean female leads, including Cleopatra.