Despite the common expectation of clathrates to embrace nearly tetrahedral coordination environments, a new clathrate structure type has been discovered in the Ba/Cu/Zn/P system with unique five- and six-coordinated framework atoms. In their Communication on
page 2418 ff., K. Kovnir et al. show that high-resolution synchrotron X-ray and neutron diffraction in conjugation with advanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy and quantum-chemical calculations can be used for elucidation of the structure and chemical bonding.