This is an interesting article which indicates that the transcriptional mechanism/regulation of the chicken beta globin locus is fundamentally different from the human beta globin locus. The authors present convincing data in evidence for preferential co-transcription of two globin genes in cis in the chicken globin locus. Previous work using the human locus in transgenic mice suggested that the beta-globin locus control region (LCR) could only activate a single gene at any one time. The human locus relies on an upstream LCR in which all the LCR elements or hypersensitive sites are grouped together. Interestingly in the chicken locus the LCR elements appear to be split with most being present upstream of the locus as in the human situation, but with a single hypersensitive site moved to a downstream site between the adult and embryonic beta genes. An interesting question that emerges from this work is whether the difference is due to the split LCR in the chicken locus that appears to be capable of activating more than one globin gene simultaneously.