The 2008 Abel Prize winners are John Griggs Thompson and Jacques Tits. Apparently they were involved (Thompson more so) in the classification of finite simple groups. I'd never heard of them, since I don't know anything about group theory, but it's still my duty to spread the news of mathematical accomplishments as widely as possible.

Microloans miss the middle.

I just finished reading Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, in which he pleads for a more careful scientific study of religion. An article in the Economist looks at just that. The brain scan studies are completely worthless, but I like the game theory approach that looks at group cooperation:

The splendour of a peacock's tail and the throaty roar of a stag really do show which males are fittest, and thus help females choose. Similarly, signs of religious commitment that are hard to fake provide a costly and reliable signal to others in a group that anyone engaging in them is committed to that group. Free-riders, in other words, would not be able to gain the advantages of group membership.

A writeup of a related study, on the ever-present problem of cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma, is here.