Two days to go to Christmas. What do you give a chemist for Christmas? Well, although it was for his birthday, not Christmas, Nottingham University’s Dr Mike Fay at the Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Centre has presented Professor Martyn Poliakoff with his very own Periodic Table. What is unique about this present is that it is written on one of his own hairs. Martyn Poliakoff is the author of the excellent series of videos on the Periodic Table – a fantastic resource for teaching Topics 3 and 13. This particular Periodic Table was etched on one of his (silver!) hairs using nanotechnology to produce a table with the dimensions of just 89.76 μm across and 46.39 μm from top to bottom (helium to lawrencium). Each element is just 4 μm across so takes up an area of just 16 μm² (16 x 10^-12 m²). As Professor Poliakoff says, “It is the best birthday present I have had today -although I've only actually had two presents”. It can probably claim to be the world’s smallest Periodic Table. The video clip  below shows exactly how it was done and is well worth showing to your students.