The ASC Trinity Term Lecture delivered by Professor Tom Gilbert, exploring the analysis of bird genomes and evolution. Prof Tom Gilbert (University of Copenhagen) and colleagues have recently solved several major problems regarding bird evolution through analysing the genomes of over 48 bird species. Their work has been published in a significant series of papers in Science and other journals which together are considered the most comprehensive genome study of any major branch of the tree of life. Their results have provided new insights into other research areas including associations between gene activity patterns in the brain during birdsong and human speech and the explosion in bird diversity after the disappearance of the dinosaurs between 67-50 million years ago.